


Nothing Grows

by Icarus_is_flying



Series: Better That a Millstone [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Baby Luke, Canon-Typical Violence, Darth Vader Redemption, Gen, Obi-Wan Kenobi is a Mess, Parent Darth Vader, Vader's misery castle is giving everyone flashbacks, brothers to enemies to disaster parents, growth is an uphill slog full of pitfalls and regression, he's got some stuff to atone for first, im using the ampersand for a gd reason, not obikin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-21
Updated: 2020-05-18
Packaged: 2021-02-28 16:27:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 23,926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23240206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Icarus_is_flying/pseuds/Icarus_is_flying
Summary: Vader captures Obi-Wan and an infant Luke and whisks them away to his castle on Mustafar, desperate to reclaim some version of the family he lost. With Luke struggling to thrive, the Jedi and the Sith must strike an uneasy truce to keep the boy alive.But the ground between them is salted, and nothing good grows grows on Mustafar.A Star Wars AU
Relationships: Anakin Skywalker | Darth Vader & Luke Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi & Anakin Skywalker | Darth Vader, Obi-Wan Kenobi & Luke Skywalker
Series: Better That a Millstone [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1750027
Comments: 209
Kudos: 701
Collections: favourite fics from a galaxy far far away





	1. the rising black smoke carries me far away

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vader makes an important discovery and an even more important decision.

Ben saw the smoke from the Lars farm first. Then a terrible twisting feeling gripped him like a fever, and he stumbled to his speeder bike. 

_Hurry,_ urged the Force. The decrepit speeder whizzed across the dunes and cut a sharp wake in the sand as he urged it towards the rolling black column. 

He reached forward in the Force, trying to determine if he was too late, if he’d failed again, but the faithless thing swirled away from his grasp. It had been so hard to find since...

_Hurry. Hurry._

The Lars farm appeared on the horizon. Smoke billowed from every outbuilding, and an imperial shuttle rested not a dozen yards from the main house. A dozen stormtroopers patrolled the grounds. 

The Empire didn’t care about Tatooine, didn’t care about the Hutts or the slaves or the farmers. What in blazes were they doing here? 

Ben threw the brakes on the speeder and leaped off before it could stop, landing in a cloud of sand while the speeder skidded to a stop a few meters off. 

A half dozen stormtroopers swung toward him, blasters raised. The commander gestured for him to stop. “Halt.”

The hermit strode towards them, cloak whipping at his heels, lightsaber in his sleeve. Thank the Force he'd brought it along. He raised both hands with an amicable smile. “What seems to be the problem here?”

The commander pointed at him. “This is Imperial business. Move along.”

Clones. One with his finger too close to the trigger. Maybe the Force had finally seen fit to let him die. 

Ben slowed and raised his shoulders. “These are my neighbors. Where are they—“

A blaster fired. Ben deflected the shot and cut the trooper down in one movement. He pivoted and two more fell. Three more shots. The last of the troopers hit the sands, still. Ben spun toward the house. 

A hulking black figure emerged from the main house, stooping to fit through the low door. A familiar Force presence hit Obi-Wan like a kick to the stomach. A sun burning frigid, eclipsed to a white corona of hatred and death. 

Vader. 

The realization sucked all the air from Ben’s lungs. How had he found them?

In his arms was a white bundle of cloth, writhing against the Sith’s grasp. A child.

Luke.

Crying. 

Ben steeled himself and raised his saber. “Vader!”

The black-armored Sith turned toward the Jedi, and surprise rippled through that icy star, then razor-sharp rage. “Obi-Wan Kenobi.” The respirator in his skull-like mask clicked and hissed. His voice was deeper, slower, like it was coming through some modulator. Like a droid. “I should have expected to find you here.”

Rumors of the Emperor’s mechanical hound had reached even Tatooine in the year since the Empire’s abrupt appearance. More machine than man, built—rebuilt—for intimidation and power. Countless dead at his hands. Hands that held Luke.

Ben pointed his saber at the Sith. “Give me the boy.”

“He is--” That horrible click-hiss of the respirator. “My son.”

“He is not yours anymore. You will destroy him.”

Luke screwed up his face and screamed, his distress bleeding into the Force. 

Ben weighed his options. After a year on Tatooine, he wasn’t as sharp as he had been. He was leaner, less strong, and he’d already failed to kill Vader once. With Luke so close to danger, it would be reckless to attack first. 

But Vader was stiff. He moved slowly, heavily, and the rage in him was laced with pain bordering on agony. Ben might not be the man he was a year ago, but Vader even less so. If they crossed sabers again, it would end the way it had on Mustafar. It would always end the same way. 

Ben took a starting stance and fixed the Sith with a stern glare. “Hand over the boy.”

“And you will spare me, Master? As you spared me on Mustafar?” It was as close to a snarl as the monotone vocoder would allow. 

Ben didn’t answer. Couldn’t. 

Vader looked at the weeping child in his arms. “He is Padme’s. Mine. I thought he was lost to me.” His grip on the weeping boy tightened. “I will not give him up.” 

The Jedi took a starting stance, feet planted. “Then I will do what I must.” 

The corona curled around Vader, encompassing Luke and reaching past the dead stormtroopers for Ben. “No.”

As Force shrieked a warning, Ben lunged. Vader raised a fist, and the Force turned on the Jedi, cinched around his throat, wrenched him from his feet. 

His lightsaber hit the sand as he gasped for air that wouldn’t come. His hands went to his throat. A useless reflex. “Vader.”

But the Sith stood there, fist outstretched, his skull mask impassive and cold. Ben blacked out as the sound of Luke‘s wailing. 

***

Vader watched the Jedi struggle uselessly against the Force choke. He’d waited so long for this moment—his old master at his mercy. He’d make Kenobi pay for what he’d done during their duel. For leaving Vader to die. For stealing Padmé’s child and bringing him to this hell hole of a planet. 

But Vader had found Luke, and the Jedi had tried to take him away again. 

Kenobi’s struggle lessened then stopped, and his arms fell limp by his sides as he dangled in the air. Just a few seconds more and—Luke hit Vader's shoulder then threw back his head and screamed, so angry and so scared that it drilled into Vader’s head and shook him from his rage. Startled, he dropped Obi-Wan’s unresponsive body to the sands and turned his attention to his son. His son. 

Luke was small, pale for a child of Tatooine, weighing nothing in Vader’s arms. Nothing good grew on this planet. Certainly not children. Luke was clearly sickly—born too early--and at that thought guilt coursed through Vader like an electric shock. His son had been born too early. 

The boy's face was blotched and red from crying. He was afraid. He was afraid of Vader. 

“It is all right, Luke.” He put a hand on the boy’s soft head in an attempt to comfort him. “You are safe now. I will never harm you.” 

If Luke understood, he didn’t believe it. He kept screaming, even twisting in Vader’s arms to reach pitifully for Kenobi’s unconscious form. 

Vader’s newly rediscovered heart twisted in his chest like a broken gear. “Luke. Luke, he cannot help you. Look at me.”

But Luke wouldn’t look at him. Wouldn’t stop crying. 

How could such a small child have such powerful lungs? How could he already know so much fear? 

The vocoder cloaked all Vader’s words and inflections in a protective monotone, but it couldn’t hide his desperation as he pleaded with his son. “Stop crying. Luke, please.” 

Vader didn’t know what to do. He didn’t know how to be a father. He couldn’t even make his own son stop crying. 

His gaze fell on the unconscious Jedi. Obi-Wan has always been good with children, even if he’d been a foolish old man who thought he could help them. He had tried to help Anakin Skywalker. He had tried to help Luke. 

Luke. Beautiful, bright boy. He was strong in the Force, and even sickly he was full of life and Light like a third sun, still wailing his fear in his father’s mechanical arms. He needed guidance. A teacher. 

In what he would look back on as a moment of desperate madness, Vader held out a hand and called Obi-Wan's lightsaber to his hand. It obeyed, and he clipped it to his belt then levitated a still unconscious Obi-Wan off the sand. Then, with his son and his old master in his possession, the Sith strode onto his ship and left behind the endless, pitiless sands of Tatooine and the black smoke rolling into the pale sky. 

***

He was dead. Vader had killed him, and he was dead on the Tatooine sands. At least he wouldn’t be around to see what that monster was going to do with Luke. 

But if he was dead, why did he have such a terrible kriffing headache? And why could he hear crying? Was the Force crying for its lost children again?

Ben opened one eye and found himself looking up at a ship’s ceiling. He was lying on the floor, hands cuffed in front of him, and his legs at an odd angle like he’d been tossed in a heap like so much laundry. Under him, the cold metal floor shook with the rumble of a hyperspace engine. If he wasn’t dead, what in the nine hells had happened?

Groaning, Ben sat up. Every bone in his back cracked. When had he gotten so old?

A respirator hissed in exhale. “I see you are awake.”

Vader. 

Ben snapped his gaze to the front of the ship where Vader stood near the control console with a still-wailing Luke in his arms. The boy was wrapped in the Sith's black cloak, which he clung to with tight fists. 

Ben reached for his lightsaber, but it was gone. Where was it? Had he dropped it in the sand? 

Vader held Luke stiffly, and the boy threw back his red-face and wailed. Crimson blotched his little face from what had to be hours of on and off crying. Vader’s mask was frozen, but he tilted his head at an angle that seemed to indicate concern. “Why will he not stop?”

Ben ran a hand over his face, and the cuffs snagged on his beard. Luke had cried all the way from Polis Massa to Tatooine, all confusion and hurt and fear. Now he was crying in fear, in exhaustion. 

“He will cry until he cries himself to sleep,” Ben said. 

“Why will he not be comforted?” The frustration in Vader’s voice was evident, and Ben couldn’t help the vicious pang of satisfaction he felt. 

“You’re scaring him. You’re a stranger who took him from his home. From his family.” 

“I am his father.” Vader’s monotone stayed the same, but there was an edge of despair to it that seemed to transcend the voice modulator. In another life, it might have evoked pity from Ben, but he wouldn’t allow himself to feel that now. The Jedi twisted his wrists, and the cuffs snapped and clattered to the floor. Seemed the Empire hadn’t improved the quality of law enforcement. Ben kicked the cuffs aside and got to his feet with only a few joints popping.

If Vader was alarmed to see Ben slipping his restraints, he didn’t show it. He just shifted Luke from one shoulder to the other while the boy continued to wail. The Sith and the Jedi stared at each other for a long tense moment, Vader's respirator keeping a steady tempo under Luke's crying. Ben wanted to comfort the boy. But Vader did not seem inclined to hand him over, and a fight in such close quarters would only end in injure to the child, and Ben couldn't risk that. He crossed his arms. “How did you find us?”

“That is your primary concern?”

Ben shrugged. 

“I… have been having dreams.” Vader almost seemed embarrassed, but that was preposterous. 

Ben stared blankly at him. Then, “Of kriffing course you did.”

Vader’s respirator cycled, and a light on his chest flickered red. So much of him had been burning when Obi-Wan turned his back on Mustafar—

Ben shoved the memory aside and clamped down on his shields both to protect Luke and to hide from Vader. 

How much had the Emperor been able to save? Enough for him to feel something for his son. Not enough to feel for Owen and Beru.

“You didn’t have to kill them.”

“They hid Luke from me. They deserved to die.” 

The vocoder made the pronouncement apathetic, but somehow that made it all the crueler. Rationalizing. Always looking for somewhere to lay the blame when Ben knew exactly where the blame went. He’d brought Luke to Owen and Beru, and now they were dead. But Vader had killed them, and Ben wouldn’t take the blame for that. Biting back the urge to spit at Vader’s feet, Ben crossed his arms. “I hid Luke from you. And yet you have not extended me the same courtesy.” 

“No, I have not.”

“What’s it to be then? Torture? Will you hand me over to your new master for a public execution?” 

“Perhaps I should kill you now and spare myself your self-righteousness.”

They stood glaring at each other, and Vader’s anger simmered at a terrible rate, but Ben didn’t care. Let Vader storm and rage and rampage. He’d destroyed everything the Jedi cared about a long time ago. 

Almost everything. 

Ben stuck out his arms. “Give him to me.” 

Vader looked down at his son and seemed about to argue.

"Do you want him to stop crying or not?"

Reluctantly, Vader handed the child over, cloak and all. Ben immediately stepped back several paces and turned his back to Vader, shielding Luke from his father’s presence. “It’s all right.” He bounced the boy in slow motions. “It’s all right now.” 

He had so little experience with children, none with younglings this small apart from a few shifts in the crèches to teach him patience. He wasn’t sure it had worked. But he had raised two teenagers, and he had never killed children. A low bar to hurdle, but it did make him the most qualified person on the shuttle.

“It’s going to be all right," he whispered. He didn't know if he was lying. 

While Vader watched like a hawk from the cockpit, Ben paced the back of the shuttle for close to an hour until Luke cried himself into a fitful sleep. He was drooling on Ben’s shoulder and had both fists full of Ben’s tunic, but he was sleeping and peaceful. Thank the Force. 

Reluctantly, he turned to Vader but kept his distance. “Where are we going?” 

Click. Hiss. “My home.”

Coruscant then. The thought of going back to that place stung harder than Ben had expected, but he kept his face at a stern neutrality. “You cannot be serious. The Emperor will kill him.”

“He will not.” Vader stabbed a finger at Ben like he wished it was a lightsaber. “I will never allow that.” 

“Because you’ve done such a good job getting what you want to this point.” 

“Be _silent_.” Vader rose to his feet, all hulking six feet of him taking up the door. It would have been intimidating if Ben wasn’t already sick of his dramatics. Is this what the galaxy had been dealing with for the past year?

“You are fortunate I allowed you to live.”

“Yes, and why exactly is that, oh Sith Lord?”

Vader hesitated. His respirator cycled a few times before he answered. “I... require your assistance.”

Ben felt his brain shorting out. He must have sustained some damage when Vader knocked him unconscious. “I beg your pardon?”

“Luke is small. Fragile. I have lost… enough. I will not lose Luke again. Obi-Wan.” He bowed his head, fists clenched, and his next words sounded like they came through gritted teeth. “Given the choice, I would cut you down where you stand. But Luke needs you.” 

Ben closed his eyes. Maybe he was dead and this was some cosmic torture for his failures. Maybe he’d suffered heatstroke, and this was all a terrible dream as he baked under Tatooine’s twin suns. 

Luke shifted, smearing drool across his cheek. Ben looked down at the child--found and in danger. His to save. 

And if he did not save him… 

And if Vader knew about Luke, if he thought he had Padme’s child, then she was still safe. He wouldn’t even think her name in Vader’s presence. It was too dangerous. 

As long as she was safe, there was still hope.

The Jedi shuddered a sigh. “I swore to protect this boy. If you harm a hair on his head--”

Vader growled. “I would never--”

“--I will finish what I started on Mustafar. And this time I will not hesitate.”

They stared at each other for a long time. Then Vader inclined his head and said mockingly, “I would expect nothing less from the great Obi-Wan Kenobi.” 

“Ben.”

“What?”

“Ben. Obi-Wan died a long time ago.” And Ben turned his back to the Sith and resumed pacing in the back of the small shuttle. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is actually a prequel to another AU about Luke and Leia I started which is much fluffier, but the angst was too good to pass up, so we're starting here.
> 
> Citations:  
> "Obi-Wan has always been good with children, even if he’d been a foolish old man who thought he could help them. He had tried to help Anakin Skywalker. He had tried to help Luke."  
> Borrowed from "An old man who thought he could help gifted children. He was mistaken.“ - Darth Vader, Star Wars comics (2015)
> 
> "Luke shifted, smearing drool across his cheek. Ben looked down at the child--found and in danger. His to save. And if he did not save him… "  
> Borrowed from "The chosen one Qui-Gon gave to us all, not proven, full of fear, and yours to save. And if you do not save him..." - Rogue Planet (2001)
> 
> Recommended Playlist for this AU:  
> No Children - The Mountain Goats (chapter titles taken from this song)  
> Thistle and Weeds - Mumford and Sons  
> Heirloom - Sleeping at Last  
> Uneven Odds - Sleeping at Last  
> True love - Coldplay
> 
> Constructive criticism welcome!


	2. a failsafe plot

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vader is not as prepared to be a father as he'd like Ben to think.

Ben started at the black monolith covered in scaffolding and constructive equipment. The tower sat atop a sheer cliff over which poured a river of magma and fire. The heat of Mustafar’s lava-riddled surface burned his face--ash and sulfur stinging his eyes--and they hadn’t even gotten off the shuttle gangplank yet. 

A spray of magma spurted up in the distance, and the accompanying rumble came with a flood of memory.

_...The Jedi are evil!_

The ground rumbled fit to tear apart. 

_Well, then you are lost!_

Ben closed his eyes against the sudden memories and the vertigo and tucked Luke further under his cloak and his own shields. “You cannot be serious.”

“I am.” Vader’s respirator cycled, and he gave no indication he was sharing the intrusive memories. Maybe they had been burned out of him. The Sith’s heavy footsteps thundered down the ramp.

Ben opened his eyes and looked down at Luke. The youngling was awake and wiggled a little against the cloak constraining him. He babbled something then twisted around, and Ben patted him gently on the back. “It’s going to be all right, Luke.”

He needed to stop making promises. He sighed and followed Vader off the shuttle into the castle—if a mostly constructed black spire could be called a castle. It was cooler inside, but the empty blacks halls were angular and reflected the light in harsh streaks that made Ben squint. Scaffolding held up parts of the ceiling, and the sounds of construction echoed through the space. It was hollow and stark and oppressively Dark, enough to make Ben’s stomach turn. 

What was Vader thinking, bringing the boy to this cursed place? 

_I hate you!_

There was nothing here but pain. 

Vader led them through two sets of doors to an empty room that looked like it might have been meant to house guests. Eventually. There was an empty central room and doors to either side that looked like they led to other empty rooms. The whole space was empty and large and cold, inhospitable as Illum. No, Ilum’s harshness was at least natural. This was devoid of anything relenting or organic, any sign of comfort. No color, no bed, no chairs. At least once the door shut behind them, the construction wasn’t audible. 

Ben surveyed the bare room, not bothering to keep his disgust from his face. His cave on Tatooine was more welcoming. “What, am I supposed to sleep on the floor?” 

“If you would rather sleep in a cell, that can be arranged.” 

"Oh, is this not the detention level?"

"I grow tired of your insolence, old man."

Ben swiveled to snip back, but Luke babbled again and slipped his head free of the cloak. “Bababa.”

At the sight of Luke, Vader held out his arms almost as if it were a reflex. “Give him to me.”

Ben clenched his jaw, and Luke grabbed his face. “Babababa.” Sleep had eased the redness from the youngling's face and his eyes, but his skin looked sallow in the harsh light. The medical droid on Polis Massa had declared him born prematurely and undersized as a result. He looked it still. But his toothless smile was utterly disarming even if he was tugging on Ben’s beard. 

Vader's respirator clicked. “Obi-Wan—“ 

_Don’t make me destroy you._

Ben breathed slowly through the memory, careful to keep the sudden surge of grief and anger where neither Vader nor Luke would sense it. The Jedi carefully, reluctantly detangled Luke from his beard and set the boy in his father’s arms. “Don’t jostle him.”

Vader held his son rigidly, and Luke leaned back with a frightened expression but he did not cry. Frustration spiking in the Force, Vader looked from Luke to Ben. “He is afraid of me.”

“I can’t imagine why.”

Vader’s mask was expressionless as always, but the anger radiated off him in cold waves. “It is your fault.” 

Luke sucked a frightened breath, and Vader loosened his grip like he was afraid of squeezing him too tightly. 

Ben crossed his arms, and the pervasive sand shook free of his sleeves. It was his fault. This haze of _painpainpain_ that bled through the Sith’s presence like spilled ink. So much of him had been dissevered. Burned as he rolled down the black ash bank to the magma river below.

_I hate you…_

Ben shuddered at the thought of what Vader might look like under the mask. He couldn’t dwell on it, couldn’t allow the grief of his failure to cloud his mind. “Why am I here, Vader? We clearly have nothing to say to each other, and if you’re going to kill me, I’d prefer you do it quickly instead of continuing with this farce.” 

“You are alive,” said the Sith. “Because my son needs someone to care for him. I read--”

Ben snorted, which elicited a growl from Vader before he continued. “On the way back from Tatooine, I performed some research. Some scientist Harlow said children require physical contact and comfort for proper development. Something which I am unable to give.”

He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Ben tucked his hands under his arms and stared at the Sith. “You dragged me all the way from Tatooine to play nursemaid?”

“My options are limited. I travel often and for long periods. I cannot provide—“ His voice hitched like it pained him to admit it. “—the contact he requires to thrive. But my son must thrive. He is so small. And sick. I will not lose him again.” 

The possessiveness in his voice made Ben shiver. He’d heard that tone before, and the oppressive, dark atmosphere of the castle added worrying layer of threat to it. Ben clenched his jaw. Neither of them were in any mental state to raise a child--that was why he had brought Luke to Owen and Beru in the first place. A youngling needed stability. Care. 

But Vader stabbed a finger at him, interrupting his thoughts. “You are an unfortunate necessity.”

The Jedi gritted his teeth, holding back a jab about the resources of a Sith Lord being so paltry. He would need to learn self-control in earnest to stay attached to his head long enough to do Luke any good. “For Luke's sake.”

“I am glad we understand each other. Now. What do you require to provide for him?” 

Ben bit down the first thing that sprang to his lips—Vader would die before he admitted fault, and the Jedi had no interest in hearing his confession. If Vader confessed, Ben was afraid he might forgive him. Instead, he stung back. “You could start by controlling your temper.”

Vader’s respirator cycled, but he didn’t spit venom back as Ben expected. Luke still eyed his father warily, tears forming at the corner of his eyes. 

They stood in awkward silence for a long time until Luke began to cry again, probably from the tense aggression in the Force. 

Ben sighed in frustration. “Give him back.”

Vader turned his shoulder to check Ben’s advance. “No. He is my son, and when I am home, he will learn to trust me.”

“Then stop broadcasting or put him down, for goodness’ sake. He’s Force sensitive; he can feel everything.” 

All the rage, the dark, the pain. Vader was in pain bordering on agony, and his son could sense it all. It was painful for Ben to be so close to the Sith, even with his shields drawn as close and tight as he could make them. He couldn't imagine what Luke felt.

Reluctantly Vader put the youngling on the floor, and Luke sat and cried. Ben crouched, extending one hand, and Luke crawled toward him in tears. He caught hold of Ben’s outstretched hand and—still teary-eyed—murmured something resembling Basic but signifying nothing. The Jedi squeezed his hand and extended his presence to envelope the child, edging back the dark. Luke babbled something, and the image of Beru and a soft blanket was pressed into Ben's mind. He smiled sadly. "I know, Luke."

“Should he not be walking?” Vader asked. 

“I thought you researched child development.”

“I had a limited database on which to draw.”

“He’s barely a year old. Small for his age. Perhaps that is part of it.” Ben frowned. He didn’t know enough about children for this. He had raised teenagers, but infants… “When did he last eat?”

The cycling of Vader’s respirator. “I do not know.”

“When did he last sleep?”

Another cycle. “I do not know.”

Ben snapped his gaze to the taller man. “You don’t know?”

“You were there as well.”

“Unconscious for a good portion of it, no thanks to you. What exactly was your plan?” 

“I did not have time… for a plan.” 

Wonderful. This was wonderful. Ben was trapped in a castle steeped in the Dark Side at the mercy of his thoughtless captor and an infant who hadn’t eaten or slept in Force only knew how long. Why was he going along with this? 

Because he didn’t have his lightsaber. Because Luke needed someone to protect him. Because it was his fault.

Ben stuffed his frustration and fear down deep behind his own impenetrable shields where neither Vader or Luke would sense them. Still holding the youngling's hand, he rubbed his free wrist against his forehead. “A bottle. A crib. A change of clothes for us both, and a bed for me. The first shuttle off this planet if you can possibly manage it.”

“What?” 

This was like pulling teeth. “You asked what you had to do. I’m giving you a list.” 

“Do not presume to—“

“Spare me the dramatics. Either give me what I need to take care of Luke or kill me.” 

Vader fell silent, and the conflict roiled in him like a thunderhead under glass. Then he ground out, “Fine. But do not grow comfortable, Kenobi. You are here for Luke’s sake and his only. The moment you cease to be of use to me, if you try to escape, if you do anything to make me question your care for my son, I will make you one with the Force.” 

Ben didn’t bother answering as Vader swept from the room, long black cape snapping at his heels.

***

While Vader was gone, Ben weighed his options. He could take Luke and try to get back to the shuttle and vanish before the Sith could find them. It would be a close thing, but Ben has learned his lesson. No more staying in one place, no attachments. They would stay on the move and never rest long enough for Vader or the Empire to find them. 

But neither of them had eaten in close to a day. And if Vader caught them…

Ben has no lightsaber and no destination. He certainly couldn’t call on Bail, not with Vader at his heels. Alone, he would be fine. He had learned to be alone, to fade away, and if he left Luke, Vader might be content to let the Jedi go. But the thought of leaving the boy to be raised by a Sith in this evil-seeped castle made Ben physically ill… 

No. He would not leave Luke. 

He had sworn to watch over the boy. Though he couldn't have foreseen where such a promise would bring him, he would not break it now, not Luke needed him more than ever.

Despite his threats, Vader returned a short time later with a strange assemblage of supplies in a metal box: a container of something resembling milk, a few blankets, a set of black robes, some bandages, a few ration bars. 

Wonderful. 

While Luke sat wrapped in his cloak, Ben picked through the supplies. They would do, but it was clear Vader hadn’t had a plan before he departed for Tatooine. Anakin had always said the only failsafe plan was no plan at all. The memory hurt. Ben looked up. “And the crib?”

Vader pointed to the box. “It will do until I can build a replacement.”

Did he expect to get a child to sleep in a metal-- Sighing, Ben pinched the bridge of his nose. “It’s better than nothing, I suppose.”

“Excellent.” Vader paused as if hearing something. He growled but turned on his heel. “See that he is fed and well-rested. I have other business to attend to, but I will return with a medical droid to assess his health in a few hours.”

The doors hissed shut behind him, and the lock slid into place with an audible groan.

Ben sighed and laid a hand on Luke’s head. “How did we get into this mess?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because I have no self-control, and because I think we're all starting to go stir crazy, have a free update! After this, I will probably go to an every-other-week update schedule so I can keep a few chapters ahead and continue to update my other AU. 
> 
> It's not clear exactly how early the twins were born, but it's likely they were premature. Beru and Owen absolutely did their best, but Tatooine doesn't have a lot in the way of medical care, so Luke is very much a preemie Force sensitive, and his new home is not helping at all. As much as Vader hates Obi-Wan right now, he's more worried about Luke's well-being and not losing him.


	3. give up on trying to save us

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ben hasn't given up escaping. He's just biding his time.

After two weeks, Ben had established enough of a routine to keep Luke active in their prison cell. The suite of rooms was large and sterile and windowless. If he hadn't seen with his own eyes how the castle was affixed to the cliff face, he might have thought they were on a ship. The warm overhead lights gave no indication of the actual hour, so Ben had only a small chrono to mark the passage of time. He imagined that children needed sunshine, but he had no interest in letting Luke play on a hardened lava flow even if he could persuade Vader to let them outside. The door to the hallway was really two doors and a short passage, both locked remotely, which meant no locking mechanism to slice into. Whenever the silver protocol droid delivered their meals and replenished their supplies, one door always remained locked. None of the vents cycling fresh air into the rooms were large enough to fit him. 

For having no plan, Vader had trapped his old master well. 

So the Jedi turned his attention from escape to Luke. Up early, meals and naps at regular intervals. Practice walking, meditating, teaching the youngling to speak. He was smart and well-tempered, quick to smile and delighting in every small thing he found. But he had a temper too, a familiar one that sent a thrill of fear through Ben with every tantrum, however infrequent. He would not see Luke fall like his father. He couldn't.

When Luke went down for his afternoon nap, Ben focused on his own training to try to cope with the ever-looming dread the castle inspired. He swept the room daily for bugs or cameras--any kind of surveillance device--but found nothing. Still, he couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was watching them. If Vader was going to keep them under guard and lock around the clock, Ben wished the Sith would just say so up front. 

To his credit, Vader had provided most of what Ben requested. Supplies for Luke, a crib, a bed, and a change of clothes--hideous, ill-fitting black things that Ben only wore long enough to wash the Tatooine sands from his actual clothes. 

Luke did not care for the metal box or the crib that came a few after. He would fall asleep only to wake a few hours later, squalling and racked with fear. Ben tried to keep his nightmares locked away, to keep his lack of emotional control from leaking to Luke through their growing bond, but even on nights he succeeded, the castle has plenty of fears to offer a child. So Ben tried swaddling the boy in his cloak, another comfort, but it only extended Luke's slumber to half the night. Soon the Jedi had given up on the crib altogether and took to pacing Luke to sleep then lying down with youngling slumbering on his chest. Luke developed a habit of gripping fistfuls of Ben’s tunic whenever he was held like he was afraid the man would disappear. Had the boy been this clingy with Beru? Ben couldn’t help but blame himself for Luke’s struggles. If he had been a better guardian, if he had stopped Vader--

But Luke was crying again, and it was hard to think about anything else. 

Vader visited often, though the timing and duration of his visits were erratic at best, and Ben gave up trying to anticipate when the Sith would lumber in and demand to hold Anakin Skywalker’s son. He seemed determined, if not to make the boy attached to him, to overcome Luke's fear of the life support apparatus by sheer desensitization. To Ben’s surprise, bit by bit the boy became less afraid of the looming man and his rigid mask. Vader held Luke or sat with him while he played and spoke as softly as his vocoder would allow, and youngling stopped shying away from Vader’s cyclic breathing. It was hard not to remember Anakin Skywalker, that bright, golden boy so full of promise and power. It was hard not to remember what he had thrown away. What Obi-Wan had done to him.

Perhaps he really did love the boy. But Vader’s possessiveness burned hot. And as much as he insisted on the necessity of Ben’s presence, he seemed to resent the ease and laughter Luke bestowed so easily on the Jedi when Vader struggled for a smile.

But arguments upset Luke’s already tenuous peace, so the Jedi and the Sith avoided arguing by not speaking to each other more than necessary. Ben often supervised their interactions from a distance, but that didn’t stop Vader from quizzing his prisoner on every visit. 

“How is he sleeping?”

Ben shrugged. “Well enough. This place gives him nightmares.”

“That is… unfortunate.” Vader held both Luke’s hands and helped the boy stand on unsteady feet. Luke could stand by himself for a few seconds at a time, but he wasn't walking yet. His left leg buckled under him, and he giggled when Vader lurched to catch him. Once his son was balanced again, Vader gave Ben a glare. “You should shield him better.”

Exasperation flicked through Ben then was gone. “Of course, _Darth_.”

“Is he getting enough to eat? He is...” The ventilator cycled. “Small.”

“Children are small.”

Vader made a derisive noise in his throat, but Luke screeched at him and took two toddling steps, immediately drawing the Sith Lord’s attention. Vader tilted his head closer to his son. “Luke. My Luke. You will be strong.”

That plucked a worrying string, one that was beginning to fray from overuse. Ben crossed his arms. “Why does he need to be strong?”

Vader seemed to miss the subtle accusation. “He is my son. He cannot be anything else.”

Ben frowned. He had yet to uncover Vader’s exact plans for the boy, and that was troublesome. For all his patience and gentleness with the youngling, Vader was first and last a Sith. He could not be allowed to corrupt Luke. Ben would have to turn his attention more seriously to escaping.

“You are brooding, old man.”

That broke him from his reverie. “An unfortunate side effect of your company.”

Vader gave him a hard stare. 

Displeasure rippling in the Force, Luke screeched again.

“You are disturbing my son,” Vader said almost in triumph that for once he was not the source of the upset. 

Ben retreated to the other side of the room, making a show of fashioning another empty milk bottle into a toy bantha. He finished it quickly, added it to a growing pile of makeshift toys, and turned instead to meditation. 

Mustafar made meditating… difficult. If the Temple had been a wellspring of growing things, this castle was a wound belching a smog of sulfur and cinder that clung to his clothes and his hair and his skin. It dragged him down, shoving memories of burning, of lightsabers clashing, of screaming and pleading almost faster than he could let them go. He had to strain to find the cool, free air of the Light, and more often than not it slipped from his grasp. This time he stumbled into it. It was clear and bright, almost painful to look at after so long in the dark, but he could not turn away from it. It offered no answers, only eased the burning from his lungs in silence. Then it was gone as quick as it came.

He roused from his meditation to find Vader gone and Luke sitting in his lap, chewing on a bottle toy and crooning to himself. The boy was so light. What would become of him if he remained here?

Ben laid his hand on Luke’s head and sighed. “I will find us a way out of this place, little one.”

Luke turned large eyes up to him and babbled something resembling a question.

The Jedi smiled and brushed the boy's hair from his eyes. “I will. I promise.”

***

He spent the next week setting aside supplies. Spare milk bottles, clothes, diapers, food--all tucked into the metal crate under his bed. If they had a chance to escape, Ben planned to be prepared to take a youngling on the run. Unlike Vader, he would have a plan.

And their chance came sooner than he expected.

Ben crouched on the floor, holding up a duraplastic toy. Vader had promised actual toys soon, but the Jedi’s handmade substitutes would do for now. “This is a bantha.”

Luke watched attentively, and Ben couldn’t help the pride he felt every time the youngling identified an animal. Luke waved a hand. “Bata.”

“Well done.” Ben handed the toy over, and Luke waved it in the air as if to show it off even though the Jedi was already looking at him. Ben nodded. "Yes, I do see it." 

The sound of the outer door sliding open and a dark presence beyond caught the Jedi’s attention, and he gave Luke a knowing look. “That will be your father I suppose.” 

Luke gave him a solemn look in return. “Da?”

“Yes.” He held up a toy Boga. “Do you remember this one?”

His eyes alight, Luke grabbed for the second toy. "Da!"

The inner door hissed open, and a male, unmodulated voice drifted into the room. “All right, my lord, let’s see what you’re hiding away in here.”

Ben snapped his head up and made eye contact with an aging human male in hooded black robes. The stranger was dark, not Sith but forming himself after the image of one. A weak imitation but a very real threat.

A Sith acolyte.

The old man started back, recognition, hatred, betrayal, rage cascading through him in an instant. "What in the--"

 _Danger_ , screamed the Force. _Danger to the child._

Ben threw out a hand, slamming the acolyte against the wall with the Force. Gasping with pain, the acolyte struggled to his feet and reached for the door. “H--help! My lord--”

But Ben slid across the floor, knocked the acolyte’s feet out from under him, caught him in a chokehold as he fell. The man writhed and struggled, but Ben was stronger. 

“Be _still_." He pressed the Light into the acolyte’s shadowed head, willing the man to sleep. The acolyte kicked and cried out against the searing power of the Force, kicked again, and fell limp. Ben shoved him off and got to his feet. 

He hadn’t encountered a Sith acolyte since the early days of the Clone Wars, when Dooku had gathered every Force sensitive he could lure to the Dark Side.

What was Vader _doing_ in this castle? 

Luke was crying and struggling to get to his feet, too unsteady to manage it alone. The Jedi ripped the sheets off his bed and bound the acolyte hand and foot and shoved him in a closet. Then he picked the boy up and reached for Vader’s presence across the castle. He found the Sith’s blazing, icy halo and caught hold of that endless pain, ignoring the burning it inflicted and channeling Luke’s distress to his father. 

Vader’s ever-simmering rage honed and focused on Ben, and it burned then shift to his son. Luke went deadly quiet and cowered against the Jedi’s chest. Ben snapped off the connection, retreated as far from the closet as their prison would allow, and hoped he hadn’t made a grave mistake.

Faster than expected, the Sith stormed into the room. “What happened?”

“Your acolyte found us,” Ben spat. 

Vader froze, and Ben flung the accusation with vitriol. “Is that what you’re planning to raise your son as? A Sith’s pet?”

“ _What_?” Vader’s voice boomed and echoed, eclipsed only by the wave of rage rolling off him. 

Luke screamed at the onslaught, and Ben slammed his shields down around the boy. “Vader!”

But the Sith scanned the room, bleeding rage. When his gaze fell on the closet, the storm grew and crackled the air. He clicked a button on his glove, and the doors to the room slide open. “Take Luke into the hall.”

Not about to be ordered about by the Sith, Ben held his ground. But Luke screamed again, and the Jedi retreated a step. “What are you going to do?”

“Get. Out.”

Ben called his cloak to him and exited the room. 

The door hissed closed, concealing Vader and whatever he was about to do. Ben took a step back and realized he was standing in the hall. With no doors. No locks. He looked up and down the empty hall then down to Luke, who was still screaming, his face red and contorted. Their supplies were in the room, where Ben had no intention of returning. They had no plan, no escape ship. 

A great swell of the Dark Side rolled from the room, and a muffled scream came from behind the door.

Ben ran.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for the kudos and the lovely reviews!! I hope everyone is staying safe and healthy and that this update brightens your day a little. 
> 
> Vader never meant for Vanee to find out about Luke and Obi-Wan, but he's maybe not covering his tracks as well as he thinks he is.


	4. stay the hell out of my way

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ben makes a run for it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everybody. This chapter got a little grim during editing, and I want to give a heads up because I know this is a stressful time for a lot of people and would rather err on too much warning than not enough. The violence is about Mustafar/Rogue One ending levels of Vader losing his crap and will be the most violent for this fic. There is a happier ending coming, I swear. 
> 
> Thank you for all the lovely reviews. I hope everybody is staying safe and healthy!!
> 
> Warnings for burns, broken bones/limbs, and crashes.

Ben ran, and as he ran, he threw on his cloak and gathered up the ends to wrap around Luke, hiding the boy from sight. If Vader had even one Sith acolyte, there was no telling what else he was hiding in this damned castle. Ben would allow none of it to touch Luke. The Jedi's boots pounded the durasteel floors, and the sound echoed off long, angular walls to mix with the din of distant power tools and hydraulics. 

He skidded around the corner and came to an X-cross in the halls. He made one full turn, reaching for the Light through the oppressive fog that surrounded him. The recycled air and noise of construction were the same in every direction. He turned again. They had to get outside. From there he could find a speeder or shuttle or something to get them off-planet. Or if there was nothing, he'd walk to the nearest outpost and steal one there. 

Luke tried to wriggle free to look at their new surroundings, but Ben pulled the cloak back over the boy's head. 

There. A pinprick in the distance, calling to him, to Luke. 

Ben sprinted toward it, followed it through the sharp turns of the castle, which felt like a labyrinth with all its harsh angles and right turns and blistering lights. Every corner reeked of death and dark. 

He skidded under scaffolding and dodged trooper patrols and construction droids. A few paused in their work as if to stop him, but he shoved them aside with the Force, shattering one in a cascade of sparks. After a few more turns, he smelled sulfur and stopped to look up.

Far overhead, atop some supportive beams, the fiery light of Mustafar's volcanoes was visible. Their way out. In the distance, he could feel Vader's rage abate, and the Sith reached for Luke's presence. Ben held the boy tighter and reinforced his shields, and Luke reacted by grabbing fistfuls of Ben's tunic. 

"It's going to be all right, Luke. Hold on." Ben gathered himself and leaped. He made it to the lowest support beam and had to throw out a hand to catch himself. Luke shrieked, but they couldn't stop. He leaped again, and then they were on a balcony greeted by a blast of heat. Turning to shield Luke, Ben staggered back from the scalding air. The youngling cried louder. 

They'd made it outside. Now he had to find them a ship. The Jedi leaned over the balcony and surveyed the landscape. It was barren as his nightmares recalled--endless cliffs and crags of blackened earth cut through by rivers of magma. A perpetual ash cloud hung in the air, and the air reeked of heat and sulfur. An endless valley of death and fire. Ben caught the balcony railing with his free hand, clutching Luke tighter in the other. His cloak protected the youngling from the worst of the heat and the sulfur, but Ben could already feel the sweat beading on his own forehead. Somewhere in the bowels of the castle, Vader reached more insistently for his son, but Ben's shields held. He felt Vader's confusion turn to fear then to rage. 

There was the end of their head start. 

Ben swept his gaze across the ashy grounds around the castle and spied it--the white shuttle that had brought them to this hell resting on a landing pad below and to the left. 

After adjusting his cloak to make sure Luke was covered, Ben swung over the railing. They fell a good hundred feet before he landed on the hardened lava below in a crouch. Hot ash plumed under his feet, and he coughed, glad he had covered Luke’s face. The boy had stopped crying but his terror and confusion were palpable. He didn’t understand what was happening or where he was, and Ben couldn’t explain it to him.

“Just a little further,” he whispered. 

The heat of the lava was already rising through his boots, so Ben sprinted across the burning ground and leaped up to the landing pad. There were two sentry droids on duty, and they raised their blasters. Ben Force-pushed one off the landing pad into the lava river below, but the second got two shots off. Ben dove under the shots and rolled back to his feet, careful not to crush Luke. Then he jerked the droid’s blaster from its grasp to his own and shot it once in the torso. It collapsed. 

The fugitives boarded the shuttle, and Ben started the engine up as fast as he could. 

“It’s going to be all right.” 

Luke shouted something and struggled against his chest, trying to get free of the cloak, but the ship sprang to life. Grabbing the controls, Ben raised the shuttle off the landing pad and punched the first coordinates that came to mind. Polis Massa wasn’t a wise choice, but he could drop them out of hyperspace and skip somewhere else as soon as they cleared the planet. 

The ship shuddered, and warning lights lit up across the control panel. 

“Blast!”

He grabbed the controls and raised the nose of the ship, but the shuttle didn’t obey his commands. The engines whined, struggled against some unseen restriction. Then the shuttle dropped, and the air in the cockpit grew cold. Ben’s stomach lurched into his throat. 

Vader.  
The Sith's maelstrom of anger had caught the ship, and it screamed. 

Ben hit the fuel controls, injecting the engines with an extra burst, and it lurched forward. Vader was so blinded by his anger--he was going to get his son killed. Then the left wing sheared off, and the ship hung in the air for one sickening moment. Then Luke screamed, and the shuttled plummeted to the ground. Ben braced himself, shielding Luke, but the impact threw them across the cockpit. He slammed into the wall, pain exploding through his head, but he curled instinctively around Luke. His ears rang, and he gulped a breath. How long had the boy been screaming? 

Metal twisted as the boarding ramp tore from the frame, hydraulic line snapping. A wave of poisonous heat and dark rolled over them. 

Kriff. 

Terrible boots thundered across the floor. 

“Traitor!” Vader roared. His black-gloved fist rose in the air, and an invisible hand closed around Ben’s throat. “I should have known you would betray me.”

No. Not this time. 

Ben drove his heel into Vader’s knee, and there was a horrible cracking of machinery. The pressure on his throat lessened. He kicked the joint again, bringing Vader to one knee and breaking his grip. 

The Jedi sprang to his feet and used the momentum to drive his knee into Vader’s mask. Pain exploded across his kneecap as he made contact with the mask, but the material cracked across the glassy black eye. Pressurized air hissed through the fracture. Vader reeled backward, hand over his face, but Ben stomped the broken prosthetic leg again. Then the Jedi bolted from the shuttle, Luke clinging to him. 

“Obi-Wan!" Vader roared. 

But Ben was gone. The landing pad couldn’t be the only one, not for a castle this size. Not while it was under construction. The Jedi leaped off the gangway to the hardened lava below and took off around the perimeter of the castle. Smoke and ash burned his eyes, but he kept running. 

If he stopped, Vader would kill him. Luke would be alone, and Force only knew what his father would do to him. He would not die and leave the boy to be raised as some Sith acolyte. 

Or worse.

The next landing platform lay ahead, and there was a small speeder at the edge of it. Not much, but it might get them to another mining site where Ben could commandeer a ship to get them off the planet. 

A boulder dislodged from the hardened lava flow and whizzed toward the Jedi. Ben swerved at the last second, saving him and Luke from being hit. He glanced back. At the edge of the smoking shuttle stood Vader with his hand outstretched, his left leg barely supporting him. 

The ground shuddered as six more boulders cracked free and hurtled toward him. Had Vader lost his mind? Ben dodged the first four with ease, but the last caught the flapping edge of his cloak and nearly pulled Luke from his arms. The youngling howled in terror. Ben stumbled and recovered him, brushed his knuckles on the burning ground but saved the child from falling. As he stumbled headlong back to his feet, the last boulder caught his shoulder. Ben hit the ground on his side and rolled into his back to yanked Luke back to safety. 

The searing heat bit through his tunic, burned the back of his head, and urged him back to his feet. 

His shoulder was undoubtedly broken. Ben hissed and shifted Luke’s weight to his good arm. His fighting arm. The other hung useless at his side. He didn't have his saber, but this wasn't good.   
The youngling screamed his fear to the entire mountainside and laced his fists in Ben's tunic, The bottom of the cloak was on fire, and he stomped it out then took two more strides toward the speeder. A line of clone troopers ran out into the landing platform and raised their blasters. Ben hesitated. A few days ago, he wouldn't have thought Vader capable of ordering clones to fire on his own son, even to kill his old master. But they couldn't go back. The Jedi bit back the searing pain in his shoulder, the thundering in his head, and strode toward the speeder. They would have to shoot him to stop him, and he’d survived their hail fire before. 

“Obi-Wan!” shouted Vader. “Give him back.” 

Ben kept walking, extending his will to the clones to hold their fire. They all stood perfectly still like a line of white statues. Then a blaster shot hit him in the back of the calf, and he staggered and hit his knees. 

They weren’t going to make it. 

But Ben dragged himself back to his feet and staggered a few more steps. An invisible grasp jerked him off his feet and slammed him onto his back. His mind and vision went white with agony, and the first sensation to return was the coal-littered ground digging into his back. It burned. 

He gasped. “Luke, I’m sorry.” 

It _burned_. The heat spread across the back of his scalp and burrowed into his back. 

Vader limped to stand over him, the crack in his helmet venting a tail of white air with every cycle of his respirator. The Sith stretched out a hand, and the wailing Luke sailed into his father’s arms. He ripped the Jedi cloak off him and tossed it aside, and where the wind set it down, it went up in flames.

Then Vader turned his rage on Ben, and the weight of it crushed his chest. He gasped for air and choked on smoke, on pain, on failure. “I’m... Luke, I'm sorry.”

Vader raised his broken leg and drove his boot down, and darkness took the Jedi into its silent embrace. 


	5. fences we mended fall down beneath their own weight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vader struggles to decide what to do with Obi-Wan in the wake of the failed escape. Luke just struggles.

Vader strode down the hallway of the detention level. This portion of the castle was in the lowest level, one of the first completed and the least used--until now. His footsteps echoed dully off the walls, and the volume of his respirator seemed to double. It was a space designed to intimidate, to work on the mind before interrogation ever began.

He came to the middle cell and paused at the reinforced door. He could feel Kenobi on the other side, ice cold and bright and full of pain.

Damn Kenobi. And damn his Jedi stubbornness.

Vader had given Obi-Wan everything he asked for--obtained every supply, endured every idiotic barb, permitted the Jedi to raise his son. He’d thought they were reaching an understanding, even if it was a shaky one. He had begun to ponder a future, one where together they could depose the old tyrant sitting on the throne and finally set the galaxy to rights. They would have been unstoppable. Brothers again.

Vader clenched his fist. He hadn't expected Obi-Wan to bolt while Vader dealt with Vanee, the treacherous, nosy worm. Killing the acolyte had been necessary—that simpering, spying little snake had been watching him and most assuredly would have reported Luke to the emperor.

But Vanee was ash now. Luke was safe. Everything would have been fine if Obi-Wan hadn’t run, if he hadn’t tried to steal Luke... He'd ruined everything. Stupid, stubborn old man. This was _his_ fault.

Maybe three days in total isolation had changed his tune.

Vader waved a hand at the controls and entered the cell.

The cell was narrow and deep, designed so an observer could stay well back while a droid or underling worked a messy interrogation. There had been no call to use it yet, so the cell was sterile and clean, but there was nothing comforting in its metal walls. The walls even tilted inward to a narrow ceiling to increase a prisoner's sense of claustrophobia. The overhead lighting was somehow dim and harsh at once and irritated even Vader's eyes through the red-tinted visor.

Obi-Wan sat on the metal slab that served as the cell’s bed and only resting place. His head hung low, and he gave no sign he'd heard Vader enter. The Jedi's right arm was in a sling, and he leaned hard on his left elbow which was propped on his knee. From the crown of his head down his neck to his back, bacta patches covered the second-degree burns and made the cell reek like a med center. The damage had been wide but shallow enough that the muscle beneath was intact. The shuttle crash and flight across the lava flats had taken their toll, but he'd recover, which was more than he deserved. Most importantly, around his neck was a grey and blue collar that dampened his connection to the Force. It didn’t cut him off completely. That would have required severe intravenous drugs, and after what Ventress had done to him on Jabiim…

Vader shook off the memory and the pity—weakness—he detected in himself. There were other reasons he didn’t want Kenobi dead to the Force. Even with the loss of the acolyte, the emperor would find out that Vader was importing Force suppressants and demand to know why. A month ago he couldn't have conceived of keeping a secret from Sidious. Now, he couldn't imagine telling him. No. Better to keep his master's eyes far, far away from the secrets he had begun to accumulate in this castle.

Obi-Wan didn’t even glance at the Sith looming over him. He looked haggard. Grey. Vader crossed his arms and glared down at his old master. He needed Kenobi to break, not snap, but the silence was getting on the few nerves he had left. “Well?”

Obi-Wan still didn’t look up, just exhaled shakily. “Is Luke all right?"

Luke was fine. Upset, and his cries cut Vader to the quick, but uninjured. "If his well-being was your primary concern, you would not have taken him outside."

The Jedi sighed again and shifted his blaster-injured arm with a wince. "I don't know what you want me to say."

He never had. “Why did you try to escape?”

“You know why.”

The click-hiss of his respirator. “Enlighten me.”

“This castle—this planet—is no place for a child. Nothing grows here--”

“And it did on Tatooine?”

“He was safe. He had a family.”

“I am his family. He deserves better than the death-ridden dust bowl you would have condemned him to."

Obi-Wan snapped his head up and fixed Vader with a harsh glare. Unrepentant. His nose was broken in two places, and dark circles like bruises hung under his eyes. Vader regretted that last, vicious stomp to the face. 

“And what does Luke deserve?" The Jedi asked. "Exactly.”

The galaxy. Love. Every star Vader could rip from the sky and hang on a chain. To be safe.

But that was not what Obi-Wan as asking. He'd never just asked simple questions. He'd been too perfect of a Jedi to ever say what he meant. Vader's respirator hissed, loud as a death rattle in the small cell. Obi-Wan was asking what he planned for Luke. He wanted Luke to rule by his side. He wanted the emperor gone for lying to him, but the boy was years away from coming close to helping with that. That would require training. Hard training. He had trained an apprentice before, but she had become a disappointment and was gone. Everyone was gone--everyone but Luke and Obi-Wan.

“You’re going to turn him, aren’t you?" Obi-Wan asked. "You’re going to turn your own child over to the Dark Side. Padme’s child.” The Jedi's face was taut, but he burned with anger and grief. He was still grappling with it, refusing to let it rule him, but Vader could see it plain as a magma spew--the Dark called to Obi-Wan, just as it had called to his padawan. Even with the collar, the presence of the Dark Side had to be overwhelming. And it was intoxicating. 

Vader let his presence fill the room--a tactic that made even the most Force null mortals cower, but Obi-Wan held his ground. The Sith stabbed a finger at him. “Do not speak of her. If you had not been there, she would not have died." His words sounded hollow through his helmet, but he knew they'd landed when Obi-Wan flinched. "But there will be no need to turn Luke if he already knows the power of the Dark Side. He has already come to know it.” But even as he said it, he knew it wasn’t true. His son was bright. So bright and beautiful. Like Anakin Skywalker had been. And Vader had destroyed him like he destroyed everything he turned his hand to.

If Luke would not turn…

No. No, he would never harm Luke. He clenched his fists.

Never.

“If that was what you truly wanted, you should have let them shoot me.” Obi-Wan rose to his feet, his pain evident. “As long as I live, Luke will not fall.”

Click. Hiss. “Then perhaps I should kill you.”

Obi-Wan held his gaze. “Perhaps you should.”

Vader needed Obi-Wan's help. And more than he could admit, he still wanted it. He could forgive the physical damage Obi-Wan had inflicted. The joint had been replaceable, the crack in the helmet repaired. If Obi-Wan would just admit he'd been wrong... but the old defiance, the stubbornness made Vader want to goad him, to twist the knife. And he had no reason to hold back. “One day Luke will rule at my side, and we will be unstoppable—“

“Stop it.”

“He will be the greatest emperor this miserable galaxy has ever seen. We will bring peace to the empire—“

“I said stop, Anakin.” Obi-wan froze, and the two men stared at each other as his slip echoed in the cell that suddenly seemed much smaller.

Then Vader smiled grimly. He let his respirator cycle once. Twice. “We need not be adversaries. Luke needs you, Obi-Wan. He has lost too much; do not make me take you from him as well.” Vader extended his black-gloved hand. “Join me. Together we could destroy the emperor.”

Obi-Wan stared at him like he'd never seen Vader before. Good. He was off balance. He faltered. “You would destroy your master?”

“I would destroy any threat to my son. With your help, we could smite him and his underlings and reforge the Empire. There would be no need to hide Luke here any longer. We could rule the galaxy as brothers. Together we would be unstoppable. As we once were.”

_I have brought peace, order, and prosperity to my new empire..._

Vader shook his head. A flare of pain shot through his left leg where it met the prosthetic. He ignored it and looked to Obi-Wan. The Jedi had gone stony faced, and Vader felt a flare of angry desperation. He was losing him. This had been sloppy. Too early. He laid a heavy hand on Obi-Wan’s shoulder. “Together we can keep Luke safe. Make him strong. More powerful than any Sith or Jedi.”

Obi-Wan’s eyes snapped back to the present, and he took a step back, shrugging off Vader’s hand. “I will never join you.” The Jedi shook his head and stepped back. “Never.”

White hot rage swept Vader away. How dare he? Vader could have killed him, should have killed him for his betrayal, and now the Jedi had the nerve to turn him away?

Like Padme.

Rage swallowed Vader’s vision in a black haze. They had all abandoned him, every one of them—except Luke. He had Luke. And Obi-Wan would not take him again.

Vader turned on his heel and waved the door open. “If you will not listen, then Luke will.”

Fear flashed through the cell. “Vader?”

“You will no longer be permitted to see him.”

“Vader, leave him alone!” Obi-Wan surged across the cell, but Vader waved a hand and threw him against the back wall. When his burns hit the unyielding durasteel, Obi-Wan cried out and crumpled to the ground, heaving from the pain.

Vader's shadow stretched across the room, eclipsing Obi-Wan totally. He should kill him. The Force curled around the Sith, promised him power, relief, his son forever if he would only strike down the Jedi. Vengeance for Mustafar, for treachery twice over. It was what he deserved. 

Vader ignited his lightsaber. It was what the Jedi wanted, wasn’t it? To die?

That thought stopped him short. Obi-wan raised himself to shaking hands and knees, clearly fighting incredible pain without the aid of the Force. He reached one trembling hand towards Vader. “Don’t hurt him… he's just... just a child…”

It would be a kindness to put the fool out of his misery, but Vader was not kind. Let him live. Let him suffer as Anakin had suffered before he died, and then he would crawl willingly into the dark.

Vader stormed from the cell, leaving the old fool to rot.

***

Luke hated the not-Ben. The droid that held him, tried to feed him, tried to make him sleep. It didn’t make toys, it didn’t tell him stories, it didn’t pat his hair when he'd done a good job helping clean up. The dumb, dead droid that took away the bantha and the boga and gave bright-colored spaceships instead. Outraged, Luke threw them away and screeched his anger. The not-Ben was a dead thing like his toys, not bright, not cold. Just there.

He wanted the real Ben. Ben was warm and kept the dark away. There was so much dark here, and it hurt. It made the bad dreams come, and the dreams always made Luke afraid. He liked the singing, bright light much better. It made him feel safe, especially when Ben sat on the floor with his legs crossed and dreamed while he was awake. He would let Luke dream with him, and those dreams were good.

The droid held out the spaceship again, but Luke batted it away.

He supposed he would take Father too. He had not seen Father since Ben wrapped Luke up and took him outside into the hot and the fire. Luke had not liked that at all, and he'd liked the swirling in his stomach afterwards even less. There was so much hurt swirling in the Dark. 

Luke missed Father. He was cold like the house, and Luke did not like the cold. But Father could be warm sometimes, deep down. He could keep the dark and the cold away if he wanted to, and he was getting better at it. If Father came, Luke would show him the new ships, and Father would make them fly for real.

The door slid open. Father walked in, and Luke wriggled against his droid captor to reach for him. He still didn’t like the hissing noise that came out of Father’s face. It blew his hair everywhere and tickled his nose. But Father was alive, and that was good.

Luke called to him, and the big monster came to him and took him from the droid. And Luke allowed himself to be held for now.

Father was sad. He laid his strange, hard forehead against Luke's and sighed. “Luke.”

Luke grabbed Father’s strange face in acknowledgement and felt for the warm spark deep down in him. But it had been squished out, and he was just cold again. Why was he cold again?

Where was Ben? Luke looked for him, thrashing in Father’s arms to search better. But the Light was gone. His head hurt. He wanted the Dark to go away. He began to cry, to ask Father to make the Dark leave. But Father didn’t make it leave. He just held Luke and talked about things he didn’t understand. He was explaining, but Luke didn’t want explanations, he wanted to be listened to. Why wasn’t the big monster listening? He beat his fists against the hard armor and tried to grab Father’s metallic face only to be gently pushed off.

Finally, despairing, Luke fell limp in Father’s arms and wept.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I listened to "Rain in Soho" by The Mountain Goats on loop while editing this.


	6. darkest before the sun rises

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vader is summoned to Coruscant and is forced to decide what it is he really wants.

Luke was hiding again. 

Vader crouched down and found his son curled up against the wall with a green blanket and that duraplastic animal clutched in his hands. It was long since bent out of any recognizable shape, but the boy clung to it like his life depended on it. He had stopped crying once he realized it would not get him Obi-Wan back, but now he just stared at Vader with wide, soft eyes. He did not want to be held, but he screamed whenever his father tried to leave. The boy feared being abandoned, and he was angry that Obi-Wan was gone, but he took no comfort in the Dark Side. 

He had been plagued by nightmares since Obi-Wan’s ill-conceived escape attempt forced their necessary separation, and it made Vader’s heart twist to see that part of himself had passed to his son. He longed to spare Luke from the dreams, but they were born of fear. Fear was something Vader was very good at inspiring. He no longer knew how to take it away. 

Vader offered a hand. “Luke. You must come out.”

His son clutched the toy closer. “Na!”

“I will not take your toy, my son. But you must come out and eat.”

“Na!”

“I am not asking. Do not make this difficult.”

Luke hid his face behind his toy. Not crying, but avoiding eye contact. This was unacceptable. Luke could refuse comfort, but he could not refuse food. He would eat when Vader was present but not in his absence, which tied Vader to a stricter schedule than he’d kept in a long time. And without Vanee to oversee the castle’s construction and operation, Vader was running on less rest than usual trying to manage the demands of his duties and the needs of his son. 

The medical droid Vader hastily reprogrammed to care for his son suggested that Luke was suffering from separation anxiety. The droid said given time Luke would adjust to Obi-Wan's absence and begin to thrive again, but Vader did not have time for Luke to adjust. 

The emperor had summoned him.

Vader had an hour at most until his new shuttle was ready. The trip to Coruscant alone would take days, and if the Emperor had an assignment for him, there was no telling how long Vader might be gone. He loathed leaving his son, especially like this. But there was no choice.

“Luke. Come here.”

Luke didn’t answer, so Vader lowered his stiff frame even lower to the floor and grabbed his son’s ankle and dragged him from under the crib. Luke wriggled and screeched his displeasure, but when Vader handed him to the medical droid, he began to scream in earnest. His distress broadcast in the Force even clearer than the tears beginning to well in his eyes. Vader took him back from the droid and sighed as Luke gripped his cape and sobbed against his shoulder plate, babble-begging not to be left. 

Vader sighed and clenched his fists, struggling to keep hold of his frustration. 

“It will be easier for you both if you do not prolong the goodbye,” said the droid in that infuriating, false comforting tone. 

Vader gave the droid a hard look. “He is in distress.” 

“It will pass.” 

Vader tried to peel Luke off, but the boy screamed like he was being murdered, and Vader relented. He could not leave Luke in this state. He could not disobey the emperor. To do so would have deadly consequences, and Vader did not want to think about what that would mean for Luke. 

If he left and Luke refused to eat, and as loath as Vader was to allow any medical droid to force his son to do anything, he would not relent to Kenobi. He would not. 

Why could nothing ever be simple? 

With a grinding feat of iron will, he wrested Luke from his arms and put the screaming boy into the droid’s care. Then he stormed into the hall and through the castle to his shuttle. 

It was simple. He was the architect of this miserable situation as much as the castle. He was the master here, not Sidious, and not Obi-Wan. So why did he feel trapped? 

Vader growled and stalked back through the castle. He should have killed the Jedi on Tatooine where he’d found him, but he had missed his chance. A moment of weakness, and he could not afford to be weak. 

Seeming to sense his mood, droids and troopers scuttled out of his way to a much safer distance. By the time the Sith reached his shuttle, he was very much alone. Vader punched in the coordinates with more force than necessary, and soon the shuttle slipped into hyperspace. 

*** 

Vader hated Coruscant. Its politics. Its memories. It made things so complicated when the answer could be as simple as a swift downward slice of a saber. But he appeared and held his peace because his master wished it to be so. He hated the imperial palace on the skyline, still under construction to transform the gutted Jedi Temple into a symbol of wealth and power. But Vader was not visiting the Temple today. For the past three days, he had been stomping out insurrection, quelling riots with the relentless rhetoric of a lightsaber and the obedient blasters of the 501st. There were always riots now, somewhere. Someone making life difficult for the empire, and by extension, for Vader. 

But it didn’t matter. His master wished that they be quelled, so Vader showed the rioting masses the only mercy he had left--a swift end. 

Now, still dusted with the ash from the pyres and blaster burns, he made his way through the front doors of the Senate building. An imperial flag hung over the steps, flapping solemnly in the wind. The Temple, rather, the palace was not yet ready to host the emperor's court. Vader hoped it never would be. In the halls of the Senate building, aides and droids and senators alike cowered at the relentless thud of his boots. He could feel their fear like mislaid wires, sparking and fritzing, and it fueled him to see these miserable, self servants shrink from the sound of his pace. Vader made his way to the emperor’s office, where he knelt before his master. 

Sidious face the window and did not turn to acknowledge him. Instead, the emperor’s gaze was fixed on the horizon and the orange sun sinking behind the glittering skyline. Vader waited a long time in that silence, waited for the man who owned him to speak first. 

Death hung in the room. Jedi deaths like psychic stains on the floor, and the Force screamed with them still. He should have drawn strength from it, gloried in the downfall of enemies of the empire, but he couldn’t. The screaming reminded him too much of Luke. 

Finally, Sidious spoke. “What have you to report, my apprentice?”

Vader noticed he has not been given permission to rise. He stayed on his knee, even though his thigh ached where it met the recently repaired prosthetic. He did not allow himself to think of how it was damaged lest his master sense it and demand the truth. “Riots quelled in sectors seven and nine, my master. There will not be another insurrection in those districts.” 

There had been so many dead piled on those pyres they would burn for days. There was no one left to rebel. 

“Well done, Lord Vader. You have performed a great service to the empire in quelling these insurrections so efficiently.” 

Damning praise. He’d heard enough of that in his life to recognize it. 

“Rise.” Sidious smiled, and the effect that might have been grandfatherly once was now skull-like. “It must pain you so to kneel with your prosthetics. Obi-Wan made thorough work of you, didn’t he. When he left you to die.”

He knew. Sidious knew, and he was testing Vader now. Vader clenched his fists by his sides. His master did not know. Vanee was dead, and Luke would already have been taken away.

“He taught me hatred,” Vader answered. It was true. He could feel it burning in his chest, like a lump of live coal trying to eat its way out. He hated Obi-Wan; why hadn’t he killed the Jedi when he’d had the chance? He’d hesitated. Sentiment. _Weakness_. 

Sidious interrupted. “There is something else.”

Vader let his respirator finish cycling before he rasped, “My lord?”

“Now what was it. Oh yes, I remember. You murdered my servant.”

Vader waited a moment before answering. He had veered off into tenuous ground, and it was quivering under his weight. “He betrayed me.”

In the glass reflection, Sidious narrowed his eyes, and Vader knew he'd misstepped. He bowed his head. “Master, I--”

Lighting arced through the air and found grounding in his metal suit. A sea of fire engulfed him, every remaining nerve alight. The warning shriek and flash of his life support filled his helmet. Then the fire was gone, and his prosthetic limbs collapsed beneath him. Vader fell to his knees and one hand so hard it shook the floor, and he heaved for breath.

He did not plead. It would do no good. 

The edge of Sidious’ robes entered Vader's vision, and he raised his head. Sidious’ golden eyes flickered down at him. “I think you should have learned not to lie by now. You have always been terrible at it. Isn’t that what your old master told you?”

Hatred for the emperor simmered in his heart, eclipsing any hate he felt for Obi-Wan, and Vader focused on the stronger hate, fed it. He could offer Obi-Wan up right now and save himself. But the thought of such cowardice made him sick. He would not give Sidious the satisfaction of seeing him bargain. The alarms were so loud in his ears. 

“Why did you kill Vanee?”

“He…” Endangered my son. Spied on me. Talked too loudly. “He displeased me.” 

Sidious’ lip curled back in a sneer that made him look like half-melted wax. “You should have been more concerned with displeasing me.” 

Vader pushed himself back up to one knee. “He disobeyed my direct order. My men would have—“

“What do I care for your men? What do I care—“

Obi-Wan’s voice rang in his head. _What do you want, Anakin?_

Vader shoved it from his mind with vicious intent. He did not want Obi-Wan here. 

“Answer me, Vader.”

“Forgive me, Master.” It sounded foolish even to his ears. 

“Forgiveness is not the way of the Sith. If that weakness was what you wanted—“

Obi-Wan’s voice again. Quiet and insistent like Anakin was a padawan again and in trouble for sneaking off to the pit races again. Like he hadn’t destroyed everything he ever loved. _What do you want?_

Another arc of lightning grounded him in place, and he couldn't tell if the screaming was the Force’s or his own. When it subsided, the warning lights still flashed, and he could smell the vaguest whiff of melted duraplastic. He felt sick. 

Sidious turned his back on Vader. “The Outer Rim is showing signs of stirring rebel activity. Given your performance in quelling the riots, Moff Shaw has requested your assistance in managing this problem.”

He hated Sidious with every fiber of his being. An assignment to the Outer Rim hunting ghosts meant weeks or even months before he would see Luke.

”I should dispatch you straight there. But you seem in poor health, Lord Vader. I suggest you return to your castle and recover from your work before you report.” Such a kindly tone from a man who had fried Vader’s circuitry. Was he born a snake or had he grown into it?

“Yes. My master.” Vader hauled himself to one foot then the other, life support signals screaming in his ear. Every movement was an agony that echoed even after he stopped moving. He bowed as shallowly as he could get away with and limped from the office.

The hallway was silent, abandoned. Anyone with any sense would have disappeared the instant he entered Sidious’ presence. Good. He wanted to be alone with his weakness. He wanted to go home. He wanted--

He wanted a lot of things, and wanting would not make any of them so. There was only what was: Luke crying in the caretaker droid's hold, Obi-Wan imprisoned. A meager thing to cling to, miserable even, but it was more than Vader had ever hoped to have again, and he intended to keep it. A true Sith would have destroyed them both, plucked out the weakness and used the loss of them to strengthen himself. But he didn't want that. 

_What do you want?_

He wanted to hold his son.

Slowly, Vader made his way out of the building, and the last remaining sunlight smeared the sky blood red as Coruscant slipped further into nightfall. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Watched "Together Again" 7x09 of The Clone Wars tonight, and I'm SUFFERING. It's going to be a rough series finale, and apparently I'm coping by writing more angst. 
> 
> Vader offers up Luke to the emperor with such resignation in ESB and RoTJ, but I think this early in Vader's career, he still has enough defiance left to keep secrets from Sidious.


	7. it bleeds all day long

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vader returns to Mustafar. Luke just wants Ben back.

Vader dragged himself back to Mustafar in a haze of pain. His life support kept kicking out, nothing so severe that it put him in real danger but enough that he’d have to go into bacta and repair his suit remotely. 

Sidious didn’t want him dead. Vader knew he would have been gone a long time ago if that was the case, but lightning was an imprecise tool. A blunt force inflictor of suffering to remind Vader of his place. His entire body ached, muscles spasming and pulling, which only aggravated his skin. If he could only embrace his pain and let it fuel him—

But he didn’t want to embrace it. He wanted to sleep. He wanted to see his son. 

Another alarm began to blare, and Vader cursed and riddled with it until it turned off. It was worth it, he told himself. Vanee has discovered Luke, so he had to die. It was as simple as that, and nothing could be done to change it. 

So when Vader swept into the guest room turned nursery, he expected to be greeted with a bright smile and whichever toy Luke seemed his favorite for the hour. His welcome could not have been more different. 

Luke was pale and alarmingly hollow-cheeked, and there was an IV tape in the crook of his elbow. From where he sat on the floor, Luke looked up at him and smiled then faltered, eyes widening. Vader scooped him off the ground anyway, prosthetics protesting as he pressed his forehead to Luke’s. But his son thrashed himself nearly out of Vader’s embrace, screaming murder to the high heavens as if anyone was listening. It was Vader’s fault. He knew it. He was in too much pain, a supernova of firing nerves and misfiring wires, and his son couldn’t shield against it. 

So Vader reluctantly sat Luke on the floor and turned to the droid. “Report. How did this happen?”

“Please specify, Lord Vader.” 

“He is _sick_.”

So the medical droid launched into a clinical report of Luke’s status since Vader’s sudden departure. Luke was listless, prone to tantruming, and showed poor eating and sleeping habits. The droid had been forced to put him on a nutrient IV to prevent him from becoming dehydrated, and he was nearly back to the weight he’d been at a month ago, which the damned droid noted, was concerning for a child in a peak growth phase. 

Not eating. Not sleeping. He’d left his son for such a short time, and all their progress had been undone. His rage mixed with his pain and flared to an inferno inside him, and Vader caught the droid in the Force. “Why did you not _do_ something?”

“I have followed the necessary protocols—“

“It appears your protocols have failed.” Vader threw open the door with a wave of his hand and dragged the droid into the hall out of his son’s sight. 

“Ahhhh!” Luke shouted. 

Alone. Alone, and desperately afraid. He screamed, and the droid protested, but the pain and the anger were loudest in Vader’s head. He buried his saber in the droid’s chest, and the red glow reflected off the walls as he held it there, letting the metal melt and burn as the light flickered out behind the droid’s optics. The droid didn’t feel pain. He envied it. 

“You failed my son. You will be replaced.” 

Then he drew his lightsaber free and sliced the droid’s head off, letting it fall to the floor in a heap of scrap. Worthless. 

He turned back to the main room, but it was empty. A flash of panic filled him. “Luke?”

Vade spun all the way around and spied Luke in the corner, staring at him with wide eyes. The boy didn’t understand what had happened. As the adrenaline of the kill drained out of Vader, guilt and relief and pain gripped him in equal measure. 

“Luke.” He crossed the room to stand over his son, knowing if he got on his knees, he wouldn’t get back up. Vader’s rage with the droid subsided until it was forgotten, and exhaustion seized him. He was so tired. “Luke. I am… I am sorry.” 

“No!” Luke covered his face and tried to make himself smaller. He was already so small. Vader reached out a tentative hand, but Luke recoiled, twisting a knife in his father’s chest. Vader withdrew and cursed himself. 

Another lifesupport alarm rang in his ears. He had to ship out in less than three rotations, and he hadn’t even started repairs to his suit. And Luke needed close attention, love, and there was no way Vader could bring the boy with him on the Executor. Not with Sidious watching him so closely. 

He needed help. It stung his pride to admit it, and the Dark roared in his ears at such an admission, but there was simply no other option. He could not lose his son. 

Vader took a step back from Luke. “If Kenobi fails you, my son, then I will destroy him as well.”

Luke narrowed his eyes like he didn’t believe his father, but he didn’t need to. If Vader could not have Luke’s understanding, he would have his safety. 

***

Ben lay on the metal slab of a bed and tried again to sleep. It had been twelve rotations—no, thirteen rotations since he’d seen Luke. Without natural light and without the Force, his only way to mark the passage of time was by the tray of food that slid into his cell twice a day and could hardly be called food. The space was claustrophobic, designed to wear a prisoner down between bouts of torture and interrogation. Vader hadn’t resorted to torture yet, but depriving Ben of the Force felt tantamount to it. The cursed collar chaffed and blocked nearly any trace of what had been his most constant companion. Now reaching for the Force was like turning to speak to a friend only to remember them long buried. 

But Ben preferred this loss to Vader’s asinine offer. Join him indeed. For one foolish second, Ben had believed him, had allowed himself to want what his old friend was offering. A chance to start over. But it was a lie. Vader would never destroy the emperor, not even to save his son. He couldn’t afford to—he had already sold too much of himself to ever be free.

Ben pinched the bridge of his nose and winced as he caught the still-mending cartilage. Instead, he pulled his knees closer to his chest in an attempt to stave off the cold he felt but knew wasn’t there. The Dark Side was crushing from all directions, and it made him sick. Stars willing, Luke was faring better. 

Booming footsteps echoed outside the cell then stopped at his door. Ben shut his eyes with a silent groan. His lucky day. 

The door hissed open and heavy steps entered the room. Click. Hiss. “Kenobi.”

Ben didn’t rise from where he lay or open his eyes. “Darth.” 

“Get up.”

“No.”

“Do not test me, Kenobi.” His breathing, usually so regular with the respirator, was labored, and the lack of barbed repartee was surprising. 

Ben sighed. “If this is your idea of conversation, I preferred the silence. What do you want?”

“Get. Up.”

Ben started to roll over, but a warning flash of pain from his burns and his broken shoulder forced him to sit up instead to look at Vader. The monstrous man was shorter than he had been. No. No, he was slouching, a slope of exhaustion in his shoulders and spine, and the panel on his chest blinked lights in a steady rhythm. He smelled faintly burned as if he’d been outside the castle and been caught in the radiant heat off the lava flats. 

“What happened to you?”

“That is none of your concern. I will allow you to see Luke, but you must give me your word that you will not try to run.”

Ben barked a laugh. “And how would I do that exactly?”

Vader looked at him for a long time, and Ben wondered if the Sith were going to wring an actual promise from him. Instead, Vader turned on his heel and left the cell, leaving the door wide open. Ben blinked then got to his feet and followed. If this was some trap, at least he ought to take advantage of the chance to stretch his legs. 

They made their way out of the detention level into the turbolift, and Ben glanced at the Sith out of the corner of his eye. Something was off with Vader. He was slower, tired, with a resigned air that might have been concerning if Ben cared, which, fortunately, he didn’t. All he cared about was Luke. 

***

Luke laid listlessly on the floor, clutching his blanket in one hand. The not-Ben droid had thrown away his Boga and his bantha. Too broken, it said. His toys were gone. His Ben was gone. His father was gone. _She_ was gone. Now even the not-Ben was gone, and Luke was alone.

He wished someone would come back. 

Father had been in so much pain. It hurt. He had left to take the hurt away, but Luke could still feel it in his chest, in his head. Why was Father in pain? Luke wanted to make it better, but he didn’t know how. Beru had kissed his hurts before, chased them away with laughter and smiles. But Luke didn’t think this was the kind of hurt that could be laughed away. There was too much of it, and it was hurting him too.

The door slid open, and that haze of hurt was close by again. Tears welled in Luke's eyes, and he sat up to hold the blanket closer to his chest. It would protect him. 

“Luke,” said Father. His face made the bad hissing noise again, and he picked Luke up in a tight hold. A picture of branching white light and hurt hurt hurt pushed into Luke’s head, and he clamped his eyes shut and held his blanket tighter. He didn’t understand. Was that light what had hurt Father? 

“I have brought your friend back for a visit.”

A visit? Distracted from the pain, Luke cocked his head. Father didn’t let anybody visit. Had he forgotten? The boy grabbed the monster’s face mask to remind him of the rules, but from behind Father stepped Ben. He had come back! Luke shrieked in delight and lunged over Father’s shoulder, arms outstretched, but Father lurched to catch him. Swinging partially down the big monster’s back, Luke squawked in outrage. They couldn’t do this to him! He wanted to see his Ben.

But Ben held out his arms, and Luke reached back. 

Father growled and got cold, and the cold wrapped around Luke in a way that made his tummy hurt. Tears welled in his eyes. 

“Vader.” Ben’s voice was quiet and firm like when he told Luke _no_. 

“What?”

“You’re hurting him.”

The cold let Father go immediately, and he handed Luke to Ben who took him with one arm and set the boy on his hip. Luke sniffed in victory and buried his face in his friend’s warm shoulder. If Father wouldn’t make the dark go away, Ben would. But something wasn’t right. Ben wasn’t warm. He was stiff and lifeless like all the sunlight had been drained out of him. He was in pain too, a different kind from Father’s like he was hiding it deep down and trying very hard not to let anyone see it.

Worried, Luke grabbed Ben’s face. “Beh!” 

The man was thinner, less soft as he held Luke, and he had dark circles under his eyes and ugly yellow and brown blotches across his nose. He was sad and tired. Luke gripped Ben’s beard and admonished him. It wasn’t good for Ben to be sad, just like it wasn’t good for Luke or Father to be sad. 

Ben tapped his forehead against Luke’s and smiled, but the smile was tired too. “Hello, Luke.” He wasn’t warm anymore, not bright. Just a walking, talking thing like the droid. Luke stared at him in horror. 

Ben was dead. They had killed him like they had killed Beru and Owen. 

Luke screamed. But Ben was already talking to him. "It's all right. It's all right, Luke. It's still me. I'm here." Ben kept talking, and eventually, Father left. The dark and the cold lessened, not as much as it should have, but less. Luke's wails lessened to sobs then to quiet sniffs. Ben set him on the floor and knelt beside him, using his steady voice. "I am alive, Luke. I am still alive."

Using Ben's knee for support, Luke pulled himself to his feet and grabbed his friend's face. Same beard that scratched his hands. Same blue eyes like Beru's eyes. Luke sniffed. "Beh?"

"Yes." Ben tapped his forehead to Luke's. "Old Ben isn't dead yet."

Not dead. Not dead. Luke buried his face in the man's shoulder and held tight so he wouldn't be left alone again. He wanted Father to go away. He wanted to go home.

Ben sighed. "I know, Luke. I know."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As long as Vader stays in the Dark Side, he has no business being a parent, but I think even he is starting to catch on that he can't keep separating Obi-Wan and Luke without some serious long-term consequences for his son.
> 
> I've added a chapter count because only the last chapter still has to be written before we time skip and move onto much, much more wholesome Twins content in the sequel.


	8. hand in unlovable hand

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> No one sleeps well on Mustafar.

What had Vader _done_ to the boy?

Luke was pale and hollow-faced and listless, and it made Ben ill to think about how long the youngling had been in such a state. He must have stopped eating not long after they had  been separated.  More  concerning  was the boy’s new preference to crawl under his crib or Ben’s bed and curl around his blanket in unnerving silence.  It had taken hours for Ben to realize Luke thought he was dead—curse the Force-suppressing collar that chaffed his neck—and hours more of gentle words to convince the youngling that Ben was still very much alive.  Once Luke calmed down and came willing out from under the crib, Ben had removed the IV tape, changed the child into some new clothes, and set to feeding him.

Ben sat cross-legged on the bed, holding out a piece of fruit to Luke who sat in front of him. “I’m sorry, Luke.”

The boy watched him  warily  like he expected Ben to vanish at any second. Ben smiled, but Luke’s dour expression didn’t change.  Despite Ben’s best efforts, the boy hadn’t smiled or laughed once since their reunion, and it was getting  concerning. Ben offered the fruit again. “I know you’re angry with me, youngling, but you do have to eat.”

After another long look, Luke pinched the fruit in his small fingers and ate it. Thank the Force for small miracles.

This was going to be difficult.  With one arm unusable for the immediate future, Ben could only hold the boy for so long before he had to put him down or risk dropping him. And with the loss of their tentative Force bond, Ben would have to work twice as hard to make the boy feel stable again. If Vader  truly  cared for his son, why had he made this as difficult as possible?

Ben frowned and tore off another bit of fruit. The Sith had vanished and left the door to the room unlocked, some kind of test or show of confidence. Arrogance.  Ben’s instincts told him to run, to grab Luke and not stop running until they reached some distant planet Vader would never look.  But the supplies he’d been hoarding were gone, there were too many clones in the castle, Ben was down an arm and his connection to the Force. He had to be  absolutely  certain he could make it, and he wasn’t, which meant escape would have to wait a little longer.

For now, Ben was more worried about Luke’s well-being.  He could no longer sense the boy’s emotions to help parse his moods, but he didn’t need the Force to know the boy  was terrified  of  being abandoned  and angry with Ben for leaving him.

Ben held out a bit of cracker, and Luke leaned back. Ben sighed. “I know these past few weeks have been very hard on you, and I am sorry. I should have protected you better and kept you away from all this in the first place—“

Luke whimpered, and Ben clapped his mouth shut. He took a shuddering breath and forced his voice to remain even. “I’m not going to leave you, Luke. I swear it.”

Then Luke stopped and stared at him with unblinking eyes and a look of understanding that transcended his age. He reached out a hand, and Ben took it  gently. “I’m here.”

So the Jedi sat with the youngling and passed him bits of fruit and cracker and meat until Luke would eat no more. It was so little, too little, but it was a start. They would try again in the morning. Ben put the boy to sleep in his crib and tried to sleep himself.

***

Vader dreamed sometimes in the tank. The oxygen in the ventilator and the soothing bacta were the closest he came to relief these days.  He despised how vulnerable the recuperation tank made him, despised his own weakness for needing it. A Sith harnessed their pain, and he had more than enough of it to consume stars whole.  But without the bacta on his third-degree burns and amputated limbs, the flesh would necrotize and become infected despite the sterility of his suit. And he could not afford to  be hampered.

He despised the tank. But it was necessary.

And sometimes he dreamed.

At first, it had been hazy. Flashes of memory come and gone like smoke. As Vader learned to meditate in place of a human sleep cycle, the tank dreams had steadied, and he could grasp them. Sometimes he dreamed of a green planet, one with mountains and lakes as clear as crystal.  There was laughter, young and high and carefree, but when he lingered to see more, it always turned to screams of fear. Sometimes he thought it was Naboo, and he came to hate those dreams and what they reminded him of.

Other times he dreamed of a desert planet—Tatooine—and he knew the Force was punishing him. He dreamed of the farm where his mother  was buried  in the endless sea of sand.  Here he lingered, embracing the hatred he felt for this place and what it had stolen from him until, after one particularly bad encounter with Sidious, the Force had shown Vader a child. A beautiful, bright-eyed boy learning to crawl in the kitchen where Padme had sat.  How long had he dreamed of Luke, believing him to be nothing more than a ghost until the boy looked at him, saw him, and smiled. From that moment on, Vader had to know.

And Luke had been real. Miracle of miracles, his son was alive, and Vader did not deserve him.

Now the Sith drifted in the bacta tank, too much in pain to meditate.  Normally  he might have slept, but without Vanee to guard him, he couldn’t. Even here in his own castle, surrounded by his own men, he was too vulnerable. Now he was  just  beset by memories.

Memories of his mother, of Padmé, of Ahsoka.  The bodies falling under his saber were Tuskens, droids, Jedi in one indistinguishable blur.  Everything he had done, everything he was still doing, would continue to do burned inside him, consumed by a lake of fire where he had  been abandoned.

_You were my brother, Anakin._

The roar of the lava falls, the shriek of the lightsabers, the relentless hiss of the respirator. He was burning still.

_I loved you._

Alone.

***

Ben sat bolt upright, coated in sweat and shaking and tangled in his blanket. He could smell the reek of blaster fire and death and feel the heat of the lava on this face. Then he recognized the dark walls around him and exhaled hard. It had only been a dream.

Luke was crying. Untangling from his blanket, Ben rolled out of bed, hit  blindly  at the lamp until it turned on, and crossed to the crib. Luke curled around his blanket and sobbed from a dream that hadn’t been his own. Ben’s heart twisted. He leaned over the crib. “It’s all right, Luke. It was only a bad dream.”

Luke reached a hand for him, crying for Ben to push back the Dark. But Ben couldn’t. He couldn’t hold back the fear or the hurt; he could only be with Luke in this moment and try to help him bear it. He squeezed Luke’s small fingers in reassurance. It was this miserable castle, choking the life out of both of them.  Maybe  Vader could thrive here, but Luke could not. If they stayed here much longer, it would crush the light out of the boy, and Ben would have failed again. He exhaled  slowly, felt his anger, and tried to let it go, but the Force wasn’t there to carry it away. It burned in his chest, and he struggled to let it go.

Vader had disappeared to do only Force knew what. How could he expect Luke to thrive in this place?

Luke pulled himself to his feet and stood wailing but not asking to  be held. Ben picked him up  carefully  with one arm and set him on his hip, and Luke latched onto his tunic like a lifeline. As the boy’s nail dug through fabric into skin, Ben winced but didn’t push Luke away. “I know.”

Eventually  Luke fell back into a fitful sleep.  Ben continued to pace the room until the youngling slipped into a deeper rest then laid him back in his crib and brushed the boy’s hair back from his red face. “I’m going to find Vader and see about getting this collar off so I guard you against these dreams. I’ll be back. I promise.”

Luke frowned in his sleep but didn’t stir, so Ben slipped from the room into the hallway. The instinct to run pulled his muscles taught, but he dragged a deep breath and let the feeling subside. Then he steeled himself and looked deeper into the heart of the monstrous castle. “All right, Vader. Where are you hiding?”

***

A familiar presence entered the orbit of Vader’s awareness. Muted but present.

Vader opened one eye and blinked against the cool bacta. Outside the tank near the door stood Obi-Wan. How in the hells had he gotten here? If he’d gotten free, why hadn’t he run again while Vader couldn’t stop him?

Then Vader remembered he hadn’t re-engaged the door locks. The haze of agony had been overwhelming, and he’d let it make him sloppy. Stupid.

Vader growled against the ventilator, but the Jedi stood staring.  It was hard to see his face through the bacta and the glass, but tiredness, horror, grief, acceptance broadcast in the Force like a solar flare. Was he  really  so surprised? He had watched Anakin Skywalker burn on the banks of Mustafar, turned his back. Abandoned him. And now he stood there, understanding and _accepting_ what had happened.

_Well, then you are lost._

Obi-Wan came closer. Vader growled again, wanted to hurl the Jedi from the room, but he stayed his hand. This was a trick. Some kind of Jedi trick.

Obi-Wan laid a hand on the glass.  His face was clear now, hollow-cheeked and lined with something unspeakable in it, but the Force named it grief. And pity. What was he doing? Vader was  suddenly,  acutely  aware of his lightsaber laying on the table with his suit. Obi-Wan could cut off the oxygen line and drive the blade through the tank. It would be simple.

He had discovered Vader at his most vulnerable, and Vader should kill him first. He didn’t need his hands to choke the life out of his old master. A Sith would have killed him. Vader didn’t. He  just  drifted in the bacta and waited.

The Jedi spoke.  The tank and hiss of the respirator muffled it, but the Force carried the intent clear as if they had spoken face to face . “I am sorry. If I had known… if I had known what the emperor would do to you, that he would turn you into this…”

_You should have killed me,_ Vader thought.

Obi-Wan covered his face with one hand and shuddered. “I know. I am sorry, Anakin. I failed you.”

This… wasn’t what he expected. There was something churning in his chest, and he felt sick with it. They waited in a small eternity, Obi-Wan hiding his face, Vader adrift. He wanted Obi-Wan to look at him. But the Jedi shuddered again and turned his back on the tank and on Vader and left the room without looking back.

When Obi-Wan left, Vader knew he was gone. He would take Luke and flee to some distant corner of the galaxy, where it would take Vader years to find them. But Vader would look. He’d never stop looking for Luke, and when he found Obi-Wan, he’d kill him.

His anger lashed through the room, and the table with his suit toppled, and a crack shot through the glass of the tank. He hated Obi-Wan. He hated him. He hated Sidious. He hated himself.

But then the door slid open again, a thin beam of light fell across the room and onto the tank, refracted on the splintered glass and into Vader’s eye. He winced at the brightness. When he could bear to look again, it was Obi-Wan standing on the threshold. Stone-faced, he took in the fallen table, the cracked glass. No fear. No anger. Only pity.

The Jedi stepped closer. “You want things to be as they once were, but you have made that impossible. You, Anakin.” His voice was deliberate. Heavy. Another step.  Vader watched him, dreading his coming closer, dreading his turning away, but Obi-Wan stopped short and his face flinched with pain. “I cannot absolve you of this. But Luke may still  be saved. As long as you cling to your hate, you will hurt Luke. You will never be able to stop hurting him. You can stop this, but you must let it go. You _must_.”

Vader wanted to. He wanted to crawl to Obi-Wan’s feet and beg the Jedi to take him back. He wanted to hold Luke and protect him from everything that meant his son harm. But he could not defeat Sidious with wanting, not without the overwhelming strength of the Dark Side as his ally. He would never be able to keep Luke safe, not with all the enemies Vader had made.  Worst of all, to give up his power--to let go of his hate and his pain--would be to admit that everything he had done, everything he had destroyed would have been for nothing. Nothing.

He could not give it up.

Though he couldn’t have heard Vader’s thoughts, Obi-Wan bowed his head with an exhausted slump of his shoulders. Then Jedi turned his back to Vader and sat cross-legged a few feet from the base of the tank, facing the door. He was, Vader realized, keeping guard.

Vader drifted in uncertainty.  He could see the burn scars running down the back of Obi-Wan’s head and neck and disappearing under his tunic and suppressing collar . A vulnerability. One hard push in the Force and the tank would shatter and maybe take the Jedi with it. But he didn’t want to. The realization was cold and heavy in his chest--he didn't want to. Vader clenched his jaw, biting hard on the respirator.

He could feel Obi-Wan's acceptance, almost resignation weighing so heavy on his shoulders that they slumped like a much older man's. Vader wanted Obi-Wan to look at him, to say that he still loved Anakin despite everything he had done.  But the Jedi stared straight ahead like he couldn't hear the quiet cycling of the respirator and the steady beep of the life support, and even now Vader could not bring himself to reach for his old friend.

So Obi-Wan kept watch, and Vader drifted.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fiddled with this chapter for a long time. I don't see Obi-Wan forgiving Anakin for everything he did, but I think he can finally accept that it was Anakin who did those terrible things. The Dark Side has its claws so deep in Vader. He's still benefiting from this grossly imbalanced power dynamic, and the pinch point to get him to change just isn't strong enough yet.
> 
> I swear there’s happy Luke content in the next chapter.
> 
> Edit: Fixed some formatting.


	9. blink before i do

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Obi-Wan and Vader strike a tentative new peace, and Vader's time away from Mustafar leads him somewhere he did not expect.

Vader emerged from the tank a few hours later. Obi-Wan didn’t stir from where he sat facing the door while the medical droids refit Vader’s prosthetics with the initial sting, didn’t stir when the droids sealed Vader back into his heavy black suit. The pain had dwindled significantly, back to a tolerable ache in what remained of his limbs, his lungs. Now, in the hollow of his chest. When they were finished, his life support flickered back online, Vader strode up behind Obi-Wan. His deliberate footsteps echoed off the walls, but he stopped a pace behind and to the right of the Jedi just inside where he knew Obi-Wan’s peripheral vision reached. After what had transpired mere hours ago, Vader wasn’t sure how to proceed. “Obi-Wan--”

“Luke will still be asleep.” 

Yes. Yes, Luke was a safe middle ground. “How do you know if he has not woken? You cannot sense him.”

Obi-Wan inhaled like he was waking and said dryly, “Yes, I am aware of that. But he was exhausted last night from the nightmares. I would be surprised if he stirs anytime in the next few more hours.”

Nightmares. Always the nightmares. 

Obi-Wan sighed and got to his feet in one motion like he was well accustomed to moving through disappointment. He looked exhausted as well, but the ugly purple bruising across his nose had finally faded to the faintest yellow and brown. “This place is a nightmare, Vader. As long as Luke is here, he will be miserable.”

The unspoken _as we all are_ hung in the air for a long moment. Vader fell silent and allowed his respirator to cycle twice while he weighed how to respond. “What do you suggest I do?”

“Let us leave. Someplace off this planet.”

Click. Hiss. Anger bubbled in Vader’s chest, and he struggled to hold onto it. “You presume too much. You will try to escape again.”

Ben shrugged, entirely too blasé about being within strangling reach. “That might be a risk you have to take if it’s what’s best for Luke.”

Vader growled. “Do not try to manipulate me, Jedi.”

But Obi-Wan was right. Luke could not be allowed to languish any longer, not if something could be done to prevent it. “I offer...” Another cycle of the respirator. “A compromise.” 

Now it was Obi-Wan’s turn to look surprised. “A compromise? Really.” As if Vader shouldn’t have such a word in his vocabulary. As if Vader had ever done anything but compromise himself. For R2, for Ahsoka, for Padme, and now for his son and for Obi-Wan. Last night had been proof when he allowed the Jedi to live. 

Vader reached for Obi-Wan’s throat, and the man stepped back instinctively, tensed for a fight. But Vader’s gloved hand closed around the collar and snapped it clean through—the broken thing clattering to the floor—and he withdrew his hand. Obi-Wan inhaled sharply and fell back a step, catching himself and turning his face away from Vader as the Force returned to him. His shields snapped up, airtight and opaque, the Jedi mastered himself and looked back to Vader with an even expression. “I suppose you expect me to thank you.”

Obi-Wan wanted to be combative then. Fine. Vader understood arguing, familiar at least even if it was unpleasant, and if his old master preferred to hide behind words, then Vader would oblige.

“I expect you to care for my son.” He stabbed a finger at the Jedi. “When I return, Luke will be happy and healthy, or we are going to have a very unpleasant discussion.”

Obi-Wan narrowed his eyes, ignoring the threat to his own health entirely. “When you return?”

“I am going away. It may be—“ Click. Hiss. “For several weeks.”

“Weeks? Vader, you cannot be serious.”

“Perhaps months. It is hard to say. Do not act as if you are sad to see me go.” 

Obi-Wan gave him an exasperated look. That at least was familiar. “Hardly. But I’m not going to be shut up in those rooms for months with no way to get Luke what he needs. What if he falls ill? How am I supposed to get him medical care if we're trapped in this castle full of clone troopers? It would be too much to assume you have a plan, I suppose.”

He hadn’t considered that. He hadn’t had the presence of mind to consider anything but his pain since he returned from Coruscant, and it had finally caught up to him. “I will find a solution.” 

Obi-Wan went to pinch the bridge of his nose then thought better of it and settled for shaking his head. “You’ll have to. Otherwise, my escape will be the last of your concerns.”

At that, Vader growled and waved a hand at the door, and it hissed open. “Make sure Luke has not woken. I will think of something.”

***

Luke was, as expected, still sleeping when Ben returned to the room, a bit fitfully but still dozing, and the Jedi stood at the foot of the crib keeping watch. Having the Force back after so long without it had been like getting a breath after a long submersion. The suppressor had muted his senses and darkened his vision, blinded him, but now he could see, and Luke was so bright it almost hurt to look at him. Ben strengthened his own shields before gently extending them to the youngling, pushing back the dark. Luke relaxed and sank deeper into sleep than he had reached in days, even smiling a little as he slumbered. 

Bowing his head, Ben allowed himself a long exhale and let the Force wash over him. The encounter with Vader in the bacta tank had been unexpected. Anakin… Anakin was Vader. Ben could face that now, that the boy he raised had done those terrible things, was still doing them. Somehow that acceptance made it easier to breathe, even as he felt a familiar hollowness settle in his chest as they exchanged clumsy banter. But Ben did not have the luxury of hurt. No, Anakin had his chance, and he’d thrown it away. Luke was still Ben’s to save.

A few minutes later, Vader entered the room and crossed straight to the crib without a second glance at the Jedi, but there was a tenseness in the Force that the Jedi was noticing for the first time. An uncertainty that Vader hadn’t shown before. But that was Vader’s problem. Ben rested his hand on the foot of the crib and ignored the Sith. They had, it seemed, both settled on silence again as they stood staring at the sleeping child. 

Ben thought Vader might try to wake the boy, but instead, he settled for laying a gloved hand over Luke’s head. Then with his other hand, he took a datapad from his belt and offered it to Ben. “This is tied to a droid that will fetch you what you need. You will not be able to alter it into helping you escape, and it will report to me if you try.” 

It was delivered as information, with less threat behind it than Ben had become accustomed to. He raised an eyebrow and took the datapad.

Vader continued. “A medical droid will be stationed in these rooms as well to monitor Luke and tend to your injuries, and will report--”

“No.”

“No?” Vader’s hand curled possessively around Luke’s head, and the boy stirred, disturbed by his father’s sudden chill, but didn’t wake. 

“Luke and I are trapped in this room on this planet suffocated in the Dark Side and surrounded by clones; I will not surrender our privacy as well.” 

“Be careful, Obi-Wan.” The Force convulsed with anger, and Vader’s glare burned through the red lenses that obscured his eyes. Eyes that still burned gold. 

Luke whimpered and pulled away from Vader’s hand, and the Sith stilled, and the Force rippled again. Ben gripped the edge of the crib a little tighter. What? What did he think Vader was going to do? What did Ben think he was going to do to stop him? 

But then the Force stuttered and slowed like a stick had been thrust into a spoked wheel and dragged to a halt. A long moment of silence passed before Vader ground out, “Would it be agreeable for it to make regular visits in the morning and evening?”

A few years ago, he might have accepted the small concession, offered one in return to bring Anakin back to his side. But he could make no concessions here, not when he had no power and nothing with which to bargain, so he lowered his chin to fix Vader with a hard stare. “And it will make reports on Luke only and administer no treatment without my permission.”

Click. Hiss. 

Click. Hiss. 

“Very well. Do not make me regret this, Obi-Wan.” Then Vader turned back to his son, and Ben watched while Vader laid a heavy hand on Luke’s head, staring silently at the child. With a whimper at the sudden touch of the cold glove, Luke turned his head and scrunched his face up as if to cry, but his father drew back, and the boy settled. A slow exhale left Vader as he pulled himself away from his son, and he gave the Jedi a long look impossible to interpret then was gone. 

*** 

Vader despised the power-grubbing politicians he had to deal with as he mopped up after the Clone Wars. Few in the Empire knew what to make of him, the Emperor’s second, the Emperor’s attack dog, but he knew what to make of the moffs and the governors and the rebels. Anyone could be intimidated with the right pressures, and Vader threw himself into being that pressure. If he kept moving, he would not worry about Luke. He would not think about Obi-Wan. 

Day six, he persuaded a stingy governor that paying the Empire's tariffs was much preferable to having his planet blockaded. That the funds fed directly into protecting the simpering man from pirates and the crime syndicates, and the governor had stuttered an apology and complied. 

Luke's twice-daily health reports came back with faltering results at first then steadied and began to turn for the positive. Luke was gaining weight, learning to walk. Vader’s heart stuttered at the thought that his son was walking without him there to see it. 

Day twenty-four, he landed on Ord Mantell, and the rebel hiding among the city officals turned pale as Vader stepped onto the landing platform. An hour later, Vader had the woman's contacts through the whole city and chased them to ground. The building of the imperial shipyard continued without any more sabotage. 

He wanted to see Luke, but his master’s will must be obeyed. Until the day came Vader could be rid of that liar once and for all, he must endure for Luke’s sake. For his son's safety. So Vader turned his hatred on the cells of Separatist sympathizers, stomping out rebellion with rote zeal. They were clever and many, and it was not a task that would be finished soon, but it would be finished. And he would return home. 

By day seventy-nine he had been bogged down in petty politics for too long. Moff Shaw was a petty local tyrant drunk on his own importance, ineffective. The workers in his factories had begun to riot and pillage, and there was always black smoke rising from somewhere. Shaw’s blockades had quelled most of the violence, but they were not enough to smother the whispers of sedition. His incompetence frustrated Vader to no end, so when the Sith caught him engaged in black market deals, growing wealthy feasting on the spirit of his planet and passing none of it to the Empire, Vader happily separated the man's head from his shoulders. In his place, Vader appointed Frost, a calculating, beautiful underling of Shaw’s. She at least seemed competent, and the territory quieted under her leadership.

Vader had received no word on Obi-Wan. Presumably, that meant the man was still alive and had not escaped again. He should not have allowed the Jedi to bargain for privacy. 

On day ninty-two, the emperor ordered him to Alderaan, a stopover to remind the Core Worlds that for all their loyalty during the Clone Wars, they were not exempt from the Empire’s watchful eye. So Vader obeyed and touched his TIE fighter down near the palace where Senator Organa was waiting for him--a pleasantry Vader knew neither of them enjoyed. The Sith’s presence made people uneasy, though Organa did a fair enough job of hiding it. But Organa was only human, and they were all afraid of him. Of his anger. Of his mechanical body. The memory of Luke turning away from his gloved hand was frozen forever in his mind's eye. 

It hadn’t been the machinery his son turned away from. Obi-Wan had been right, but still, Vader could not give up the Dark Side. He needed it. He could not protect Luke without it, but he could be a good father to his son. He would. He just had to find another way to prove the old man wrong. 

Vader jumped down from TIE’s cockpit and landed heavily on the ground, the hydraulics in his knees whirring under the strain. Bail Organa reached the end of the platform as Vader straightened, and the Viceroy of Alderaan bowed. “Lord Vader. I did not realize you would be joining us.”

“It is--” His life support cycled, adjusting to the planet’s atmosphere. The air was warm but not unpleasant. “As the emperor wishes.”

“Of course.” Organa smiled politely and gestured for Vader to follow him as if he were only another dignitary and not the emperor’s blade. “Please, join us in the garden.”

Vader followed, already bored with the gathering. The garden was verdant, full of blossoming trees and shrubs with thick, dark ivy and running water. Wild birds perched in the shrubs and watched from the pathways, completely disinterested in the politics of the evening and singing away. It would be almost peaceful if he were not here to see people he despised instead of being home with his son. 

At the center near a large fountain, the queen was awaiting them inside with Governor Tarkin and a few other Imperial officials with delicate champagne flutes in their sycophantic, grasping hands. This, in theory, had been Organa’s idea, an attempt to smooth over the senator’s involvement with the Delegation of 2,000 in the weeks before the empire. But Vader did not like to think about the Senate. He hated to be reminded of her. He was here to make sure Organa had given up his bent toward treason. That was all.

Queen Organa offered a polite nod, and the quiet click of her mechanical lungs was nearly inaudible over Vader’s own. She had been in some kind of accident when she was young, Vader remembered. Her heart and her lungs had to be replaced, but he couldn’t have guessed from look at her. Her gown was stately and perfect, and she carried herself with regal ease. Vader inclined his head. 

Tarkin turned to face him. “Ah, Vader. I was wondering when you would join us. The emperor has had you on quite the tour."

"I serve at the emperor's pleasure," Vader intoned. He did not reach for the glasses fizzing quietly on a nearby ironwork table. He did not require such social crutches. 

"I understand you’ve replaced Moff Shaw with one of his subordinates?”

“Yes. Snow something.”

One of the officials--no one Vader recognized--smirked. “Frost? I hear she’s quite beautiful.”

“She is competent, which is more than can be said for many bureaucrats the emperor tolerates. For now.” 

The man went red in the face, and Vader had to stop and check that he hadn’t begun choking the man, but the queen intervened. Her mechanical lungs clicked with every breath, just audible under Vader's own breathing. “Gentlemen, if you’d like to step this way, we’ve had some lovely rose bushes planted recently, and they are in bloom.”

Vader blinked and opened his mouth to tell her that he did not care about roses, but Tarkin stepped between the Sith and the queen and gestured for her to lead the way. The governor always had been willing to play politics. So the queen led them to a balcony overlooking the grounds, rolling grassy fields down the mountainside toward the gleaming city. There were great round rose bushes, long branches bowed under the weight of flowers he could only assume were white. 

One of the simpering officials was prattling again. "--difficult to grow."

"Indeed," said the queen. "But anything can grow here with the right encouragement."

Disinterested, he half-turned away from them, then paused. What was it Obi-Wan had said? Nothing grows on Mustafar. 

“Things grow here.” 

Quiet fell over the party. He hadn't meant to speak that aloud, but it was too late to take it back. Organa raised an eyebrow. “Yes, quite readily. The mountain soil is harder on some plants--”

But Vader wasn't interested in soil. He turned back to the rose bushes. “This… is a lovely planet. This is a good place to raise a child.”

Alarm flickered through the Force like a shower of sparks, and the Organas exchanged worried glances, but he ignored them. They were uneasy, protective, and he had felt the same way himself as a new parent a hundred times over. There were green things here. No memories, no nightmares.

Tarkin gave him a strange look but interjected, “Yes, your majesty, I understand you’ve adopted recently.” 

“Yes.” Organa had recovered himself and tipped his champagne flute to his lips but lowered it again without drinking. “A little girl. We’re thrilled.”

The senator was talking again, but Vader’s mind was turning, systems away with another child. His child. Vader could never admit it to his old master, but Obi-Wan had been right after all. And now he had work to do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter came a little late, so it's a little longer than usual to as a thank you for your patience! Thank you for all the lovely reviews in the meantime. One more chapter (fingers crossed it stays a reasonable length), and then I will be starting a sequel that focuses on Luke and Leia in this AU.
> 
> Shout-out to my beta reader for helping me finesse the balance between Vader the Enforcer and Vader the ultra awkward. For her I've included a little non-Star Wars easter egg that you might have spotted in Vader's POV.


	10. find one good thing to say

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vader has several surprises, and Obi-Wan has never been fond of surprises. Luke is suitably impressed.

Luke’s bare feet slapped the floor in unsteady steps, coming closer to where Ben was doing pushups with his good arm. In the three months since Vader left, the Jedi’s shoulder was healed enough to no longer need the sling but not strong enough to support him yet. He’d have to keep working to get back to his full strength for another escape attempt. Hopefully, it would be before Vader returned. 

The lack of anything to do was most maddening. Ben has been imprisoned enough times and on enough long space flights to know that if he allowed himself to stop moving, the tedium would undo him. Keeping Luke out of trouble occupied most of his attention, but the confined space and lack of action were wearing on him. The Dark Side was incessant and insistent, gnawing at them both, and a man could only make so many duraplastic animals, so he’d fallen back on old training routines to keep himself focused. It wasn’t that different from caring for a padawan if the padawan was knee-high and entirely dependent on him for everything. 

Luke entered his field of view clutching the toy Boga. Luke toddled to a stop, falling forward onto his hands. Carefully, he pushed himself back up to his feet and looked at Ben, and the Jedi pushed his arm to full extension and raised his head. “Yes, Luke?”

The boy covered his face with his toy. Hide and seek then.

“I thought you were playing with your animals.”

Luke peeked out between his short fingers, waiting. 

Ben sighed. “All right.”

The youngling dropped his hands and grinned, his cheeks rising to eclipse his eyes in an expression very like Anakin in the first years of his apprenticeship. The sting of the memory mixed with the relief of seeing the boy smile. It had taken them so long to get back to this point, so he laid the thought aside and crossed his arms. There was a slight twinge in his shoulder, but it didn’t stop him from rocking back onto his heels. “Well, be off with you.”

And Luke closed the last bit of distance and enthusiastically bonked his head against Ben’s in a goodbye then toddled away, every step a small smack on the hard floor. The boy stopped only to pick up a cloth tooka Ben had tied together from an outgrown shirt. Ben shook his head and turned to face the corner. “One. Two... Three...”

Little footsteps faded, and Ben reached eleven before Luke tugged on their bond, insistent and waiting, then it dimmed as the youngling hid under his new mental shields. A cursory glance around the room confirmed that Luke wasn’t anywhere in sight. Good. He was getting the hang of this game. Ben crouched and peered under the bed, then the crib. Nothing. He called loudly into the space. “Here I come, Luke.”

Getting Luke to agree to hide and seek had taken close to two months. When Ben “hid” by standing around a corner or behind furniture, Luke had cried desperately for him to come back, but after a few repetitions and quiet reassurances, the youngling had come to understand that he was not being abandoned. Now he would hide on his own and, as long as Ben kept their Force bond open, even seemed to enjoy the lessons. 

In the Force, the toddler tucked himself smaller, clumsily like he was pulling a blanket over his head, but it meant he was grasping the concept of shielding. Ben checked the closet then the refresher, where he spied the cabinet door cracked ever so slightly. “Luke. Are you in here?” 

Slowly, he bent down and swung the cabinet door open, and Luke was curled inside at the back in a nest of knocked-over towels. The youngling squeaked and hid his face behind his tooka toy.

Ben smiled. “Well done, youngling. Out you come.”

Luke rolled out of the cabinet in a wave of half-folded towels and giggled. Ben held out a hand, and Luke boosted himself to his feet and with short fingers took the offered support. 

“Are you hungry?”

Luke nodded vigorously. “Ya.” 

“Good.” 

Luke still struggled to maintain a healthy weight for his age, but he was eating regularly again and growing and always preferred what Ben was eating to his own meal even if their meals were the same. 

The two of them made their way out to the main room where Luke sat down among his toys, tired out from the short game, while Ben picked through their shelf-stable provisions for an appropriate snack. But by the time the Jedi turned around, Luke had nodded off, face-first into the cloth tooka with its ear in his mouth. 

Ben shook his head and began to lay the food aside when a familiar, burning presence entered his awareness. That sun burning frigid, eclipsed by the eternal haze of the Dark Side. 

Vader.

Luke rolled over and opened his bright blue eyes, blinked once, then rocked himself into a sitting position and stared into space for a moment. Then he looked up to Ben with an uncertain scowl. The Jedi crossed his arms. “It would seem Vader has returned.”

A half-hour later, the door hissed open, and Vader swept into the room. His gaze fell on Luke, and he crossed the room with such speed and blazing intent that Ben instinctively scooped Luke off the ground, tooka and all.

“Luke.” Vader didn’t seem to notice the protective motion and plucked Luke from the Jedi’s arms, and Ben forced himself to let the boy go. There was no telling how long Vader was going to be on Mustafar, and the last thing Ben wanted was to have Luke taken away again. 

The youngling leaned as far back as his father’s hold would allow, his wide eyes fixed on that black mask. His alarm flickered in the Force, and Ben braced himself for the boy to start crying and Vader’s inevitable reaction. 

Vader slid one hand to support Luke’s head as if he were still an infant instead of a thirteen-month-old. “Luke. I have come back.”

Luke blinked again and shot Ben an uneasy glance. The Jedi kept his expression neutral and sent the boy a pulse of reassurance. Then Luke looked back to Vader and brushed short fingers against his father’s eye protection. Vader relaxed, shoulders lowering, and Ben noticed the Sith seemed to be in less pain than when he left. Interesting. 

“Luke, did you miss me? I have thought of you every day since I left.”

The youngling tilted his head with a puzzled stare. The Sith stood cradling Luke for a long time, staring at him as if the boy would dissolve in his hands.

“He has… he has grown so much.”

Ben only nodded and tried to let go of the worry that Vader would sweep away all his hard work.

“You have been teaching him to shield. Good.” 

Luke held his tooka up for Vader to look at. “Took.”

“Yes.” Vader glanced at the toy. “Yes, I see.” He stood in silence, staring at his son for a long moment before tearing himself away to look at Ben. “Pack your things. We are leaving.”

Of all the things he’d expected Vader to say, that had not been one. “Leaving?”

“That is what I said,” Vader repeated himself more slowly. “Moving. Off Mustafar. Have your wits finally taken leave of you, Negotiator?”

Vader’s long absence had not made his wit any more palatable. “Well, thank the Force, you’ve come to your senses. Where are we moving?”

“If I tell you, you will use it against me. Pack everything. You and Luke will never be coming back.” 

Ben resisted the urge to roll his eyes. “Small favors.”

“Do not test me, Kenobi.” But it lacked the usual venom. 

They were packed quickly. They didn’t have much to take, a few toys, some clothes, a box of childcare supplies, so within an hour, Ben had Luke on one hip and a bag of their things over one shoulder, walking up the ramp of an imperial shuttle. There were no clones in sight, and Ben had the wild urge to bolt with Luke in tow. But Vader was already halfway up the ramp, and the moment passed. He did not look back at the castle. He had no wish to return to that nightmarish place ever again.

Once they were settled in the shuttle, Luke safely strapped into the navigator’s seat, Vader opened a small case with a hypospray. Ben narrowed his eyes. “Is that a sedative?”

Vader shut the case. “If you know where you are, you will try to escape.” 

Ah. So it was for him, not Luke. He couldn’t say that idea was any more comforting, but Luke had endured enough without his father drugging him. “That seems excessive, Vader. You have all the power here.”

A beat, and anger rippled through the Sith before crushing down into yet another smoldering coal. “You will use any knowledge you gain against me. I know your tricks, Jedi.” 

Ben crossed his arms. “I don’t suppose there’s any way to make you convince you to change your mind.” 

“Unless you would prefer to be locked in a Mandalorian imprisonment coffin.”

“Not particularly.” 

He slid the needle into Ben’s shoulder, and it stung. The Jedi pulled back immediately, fighting the cold drug as it spread through his system, but whatever the Sith used was powerful, and Vader had more than enough knowledge of Ben’s medical history to know the right dosage to put him under.

“Luke better be all right when I wake.” If he woke. That was a sobering thought. He didn’t think Vader would kill him, but he didn’t know. He could never know. Luke whimpered and squirmed in his seat as he sensed Ben’s worry. 

“He will be fine.” Vader’s respirator cycled. “I am his father.”

“That does not—” Ben was having difficulty keeping his eyes open. “I hope you’ve at least selected a more… suitable residence… this time.”

Vader answered, but his voice was far away. 

***

Something was touching his face. Starting awake, Ben found himself face to face with Luke, who stood beside the sofa he was lying on. The youngling held his toy Boga with both hands and brightened to see the Jedi conscious. “Beh?”

Ben laid a hand on the youngling’s head and gave him a quick once over. Luke was fine. He seemed brighter, smiling. Fine. Relaxing, Ben sat up, which cracked his back. He looked around and found he was in some kind of sunroom. The room was open and bright with floor to ceiling windows along one wall that let in sunlight, real sunlight, and beyond it was a sprawling green lawn surrounded on all sides by high silver walls. Glancing over his shoulder, he could see into what looked like a large house with glimpses of a sitting room and a dining table and a kitchen and stairs leading up to another level. 

The Force hummed quietly, brightly like a weight had been lifted off his chest, and he could fill his lungs for the first time in months. He inhaled deeply, and the air was crisp like it had rained. 

Where in the galaxy were they? 

Where was Vader? 

“Beh.” Luke grabbed Ben’s pant leg and tugged, drawing the adult’s attention and pointing to the grounds. A little disoriented by the first natural light he’d seen in months, Ben got to his feet and tried the sliding glass door that led to the outside. Surprisingly, it opened. Ben narrowed his eyes at the high walls. He didn’t know that planet they were on—somewhere quiet at least. If he grabbed Luke now, he could certainly make it over the walls, but after that… He also didn’t know where Vader was or what kind of security systems had been put in place. No. He needed to plan, to take better stock before they tried anything like that. 

Realizing he’d stopped paying attention to the youngling, Ben looked down. Luke stopped short on the threshold to stare blankly at the grass. He had never seen grass before. He’d only known Tatooine sands and the metals walls of Mustafar. He didn’t know what plants were or rain or flowers. He didn’t know what growing things meant.

This would not do.

Ben peeled off his boots and stepped outside, giving himself a moment to adjust to the forgotten sensation of grass and dirt underfoot and of sunlight and wind that weren’t trying to peel his flesh from his bones. Then he bent down and offered his hand. “It’s all right, Luke. It will not hurt you.”

Luke squinted suspiciously but stepped over the threshold onto the lawn. When the grass touched his feet, he squeaked and picked up one foot then the other and looked up at his guardian with horror, but Ben laughed and coaxed the boy walk further into the grass. “It’s all right, Luke. Look.” And he crouched down and touched the earth.

A brown bird with a bright red breast landed a few feet away, one Ben didn’t recognize, and Luke shied away. Poor child. Taking another deep breath, Ben let the feeling of the Living Force flow through him to the youngling. It was warm and vast as the sunlight and encompassed the boy in a welcoming embrace as if it had been waiting for him. Luke, still clutching his toy Boga, relaxed and smiled, and he let go of Ben’s hand to toddle a few steps.

They passed the next hour that way, Luke adjusting to the new sights and sounds of the outdoors while Ben watched. The grounds were large and nearly bare, dotted only with a few sporadic trees and a small pond like the previous owner hadn’t known what to do with it. But this place was alive with the Living Force, more alive than he’d felt in a long time. Perhaps… perhaps he could do something with this. He and Luke could make this place grow. 

Then that familiar presence caught his attention, and he turned to see Vader standing on the threshold just inside the door, watching.

Luke smiled and staggered toward his father--Ben stayed close behind. Caught in the shade of the house, Vader knelt in front of his son, and Luke stopped, still in the sunlight. 

“Luke. Do you like it?”

Luke beamed and nodded, and Vader almost seemed to tremble under the weight of that smile. “I have something for you.” Then Vader reached to the back of his helmet and clicked something. Air hissed out from the break in the seal, and he eased the hideous mask off like a great heaviness. Beneath was a man as pale as death, his bald head covered in long-healed burn scars. He blinked against the sunlight like it pained him, and his eyes were tired and golden and fixed on Luke. He laid the helmet aside, took both Luke’s hands, and dragged a stuttering breath. The familiar respirator hiss sounded from somewhere in his chest, internal and beneath his armor. 

“Luke.”

The voice modulator was gone. It was Anakin’s voice, hoarse and hesitant, but his. Ben crossed his arms and shuddered against a chill, and without thinking, he retreated a step and drew his shields tighter around himself. To know Vader was Anakin was one thing. To see it, to really know it… there was something sharp and twisting in his chest, and he could not bear it. 

Luke shrank back from the strange face, the unfamiliar voice. The boy’s face contracted in fear and he looked just about to cry, but Vader gripped his hands tighter and leaned lower, trying to make himself small enough to look Luke in the eye. “Luke, please do not turn away from me. I… I am your father.”

Luke’s fear shifted to confusion. He fixed a perplexed look on the helmet set aside on the floor then looked back to his father, tugged one hand free of Vader’s, and set a palm on his father’s scarred cheek. “Da?” 

Anakin laughed a wheeze that rattled deep in his chest and caught in his throat. “Yes. Yes, my son.” Smiling, Luke gently tapped his forehead to Anakin’s, and his father shuddered like he was near tears. “Yes. Welcome to your new home.”

Still watching, Ben retreated a step, and the grass muffled the sound. Luke took his father’s battered face in both hands and smiled wide and toothless, and Anakin wept without tears. Ben retreated another step, and let the Force fall over him in a quiet shroud. This he would not endure. Another step, the wind whispering him on, Ben turned his back to the house and walked deeper into the garden.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can you believe I finished this?? Me neither. Thank you so much to everyone who has shown so much interest in this AU! I appreciate you all so very much.
> 
> Chapter 1 of the sequel is posted now! "where you plant a rose (a thistle cannot grow)" is set about seven years in the future and will follow Luke and Leia as they kick their dad further down the redemption arc path.


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